Cover Your Coughing, Please!
A young investment banker sat opposite me at a recent meeting in a Jakarta high-rise building in addition to coughed repeatedly without covering his mouth. I try not to be critical of the cultural quirks of Indonesia, yet there’s nothing quirky about people coughing in your face.
I handed the banker a tiny pack of tissues through my bag, telling him which ebola in addition to various other diseases can be spread by coughing in addition to sneezing. He cheerily assured me which he didn’t have ebola. Then a woman inside the room, another banker, said she had read via Facebook which ebola was invented in addition to patented by America to ensure vaccination companies could make huge profits.
Ebola is actually not an airborne disease – meaning the item does not remain suspended inside the air for long periods. the item is actually generally transmitted by direct contact having a sufferer’s infected bodily fluids. Doctors say the item can be spread by coughing in addition to sneezing if infected droplets land on another person. the item is actually not spread via mosquitoes.
Indonesia has the impressive pass rate of 99.5% for its national high school exams. Despite such phenomenal cleverness, no one seems to be teaching people to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough – preferably having a tissue or handkerchief, as many germs can also be transmitted by hand. Instead, there is actually an almost national obsession with masuk angin – the belief which being exposed to wind causes aches in addition to pains, which can be remedied by having a coin scraped over the skin.
Anyone who watches local commercial television will be assaulted by noisy adverts for various “health” products, often involving an animated depiction of the medicine miraculously generating the body stronger, the brain smarter or the skin whiter. Yet where are the public health awareness announcements? Well, there’s no revenue to be made by advising people how to minimize the spread of disease.
Ebola is actually the latest entry on the growing list of This kind of century’s pandemic panics, which began with SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, then bird flu in 2004, swine flu in 2009 in addition to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012.
More recently, Indonesia topped the global human death toll for H5N1 bird flu. the earth Health Organization recorded 638 human cases of bird flu over the past decade, resulting in 379 deaths, including 161 in Indonesia. H1N1 swine flu had a greater global impact, causing 19,633 human deaths over a 2009-10 pandemic, though Indonesia had few fatalities.
Ebola was identified in 1976 in Sudan in addition to Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo). the item was named after a river in addition to was originally transmitted to humans through animals, possibly fruit bats, which are thought to be its natural hosts. The current outbreak in West Africa is actually causing consternation because ebola features a high risk of death, killing up to 90% of those infected. By comparison, the fatality rate for SARS is actually 10%, swine flu 21%, MERS 41% in addition to bird flu 60%.
Some dedicated conspiracy theorists believe ebola is actually a myth or was invented to profit through vaccines in addition to by stealing Africa’s oil in addition to diamonds. The sort of cretins who think the 9/11 terror attacks on the US might have been an inside job because they read somewhere which no aircraft wreckage was found at the Pentagon – even though aircraft wreckage was found there.
Claims which ebola was patented inside the US are true, yet the motive was not to unleash misery upon Africa or to make money through a vaccine. The US government’s Centers for Disease Control in addition to Prevention (CDC) was in 2010 granted a patent for a strain of ebola known as Ebola Bundibugyo – whereas the strain currently spreading is actually Zaire Ebola. The CDC holds patents for various disease microbes so they cannot be patented by commercial companies which could then try to impose fees or lawsuits on researchers. The US Supreme Court last year ruled which naturally occurring genes are not patent eligible, which means researchers are less likely to be sued by big pharmaceutical firms. Vaccines for ebola are presently still in experimental stages.
The current ebola outbreak has been hitting Guinea, Sierra Leone in addition to Liberia, killing about 5,000 people. Further outbreaks have occurred in Nigeria in addition to one case in Senegal. Indonesian doctors have warned there is actually a risk of the disease being transmitted through people travelling through Africa in addition to the Middle East. Specifically, doctors said the virus could spread through the annual haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
The Religious Affairs Ministry in August declared the item unnecessary for the government to issue a travel advisory about ebola to haj pilgrims. The ministry’s Director General of Haj Affairs, Abdul Djamil, said any warning could cause panic so should therefore be avoided. Nevertheless, many pilgrims were advised of the danger of contagion.
Saudi Arabia has banned entry to people coming through Guinea, Sierra Leone in addition to Liberia in an effort to protect This kind of year’s approximately 2 million haj pilgrims. Australia has also suspended entry visas for people through ebola-affected countries, resulting in accusations of racism in addition to discrimination.
Indonesia’s completely new Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek last week said at least 72 Indonesians are working inside the ebola outbreak area in addition to should be monitored when they return, in addition to quarantined if they have any symptoms.
The initial symptoms of ebola are fever fatigue, muscle aches, headache in addition to sore throat. Next comes vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney in addition to liver function, in addition to sometimes internal in addition to external bleeding. The early warning signs are also common for malaria, dengue fever in addition to typhoid, so diagnosis of ebola has to be confirmed by lab tests.
Although ebola is actually not known to be in Indonesia, plenty of various other diseases can be spread by coughing, including flu viruses, the common cold, strep throat, mumps, measles in addition to tuberculosis. Common places for transmission of such diseases include shops, offices, public transport in addition to schools.
Jakarta’s busway has stickers advising men not to grope female passengers. yet there are no stickers advising people to cover their mouths when sneezing or coughing. An increasing number of Indonesians, mostly women, are wearing disposable facemasks in public to guard against disease transmission in addition to/or inhalation of polluted air.
Last week in a fruit shop, I observed a woman sneezing vigorously, uncovered, as she examined some apples, which then glistened with her spray of saliva. President Joko Widodo’s call for a mental revolution has been hailed as a breath of fresh air. A not bad place to start could be teaching people to cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, in addition to to then wash their hands.
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Cover Your Coughing, Please!
Cover Your Coughing, Please!