The deadly Ebola virus is spreading rapidly in West Africa and the main concern is its spread from its point of origin and be carried possibly to other countries, including the Middle East.

With the death toll rapidly nearing the 1,000 mark, West Africa’s latest Ebola virus epidemic is already the worst outbreak of its kind to occur according to the World Health Organization and other international public health bodies.

Originally confined to three West African countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leon, the virus, found to be as much as 90% fatal in some rural areas, has now spread to neighboring Nigeria with 7 cases reported resulting in 2 deaths. The spread of this deadly disease has been so rapid that a representative of the international medical organization Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) for Libera, Lindis Hurum, told the BBC that “Our capacity is stretched beyond anything that we ever done before in regards to Ebola response. We are definitely seeing the whole health care system (of Liberia) is falling apart“.

The only good news is that the American physician Dr. Kent Brantly, brought to the US for treatment, is showing improvement in his condition.

In the case of Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country, the virus arrived there when a US-Liberian passenger from Liberia arrived in Lagos showing advanced symptoms of the disease. He died a few days later; and a nurse who was treating him also caught the disease and died as well.

As of this writing, 7 persons in Nigeria have caught the disease with another 139 under observation. “We may have started too late in raising our alert for this disease” a Nigerian public health official was quoted as saying.

Although a vaccine to treat the disease is now undergoing trials, it may only be sometime in 2015 before it is ready to be administered to the general public, says WHO Director General Margaret Chan, who declared  the Ebola virus epidemic to be an “international public health emergency.

“Countries affected to date simply do not have the capacity to manage an outbreak of this size and complexity on their own. I urge the international community to provide this support on the most urgent basis possible,” says Director General Chan.

West African health officials involved in dealing with Ebola in West Africa have a very difficult time in containing the disease; especially in regards to parents with small children and pregnant mothers. They say that parents are understandably frightened and stay away from medical centers through fear of coming into contact with the infection. Pregnant mothers are giving birth at home  at “the most vulnerable time in their lives”.

As to the danger of Ebola becoming established in the Middle East, it was reported by Saudi Arabian health authorities that a Saudi businessman returned from a business trip to West Africa with symptoms of the disease. What makes the fear of Ebola breaking out in the Kingdom so relevant is due to the annual Hajj religious pilgrimage due to take place in early October.

In the past, fear of other contageous diseases has haunted the event where up to 3 million Muslim pilgrims descend on the Kingdom for the 5 day event.  Saudi health official Dr. Khalid al-Marghalani said that that the man arrived to Saudi Arabia from Sierra Leone last Sunday night. Concern over the virus occuring in Saudi Arabia during the Hajj has resulted in officials not issuing visas for persons from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone.

With Nigeria now reporting Ebola cases, that country with its large Muslim population may also be added to the list.  Diseases like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)  are already plauging Saudi health authorties; so another and even more dangerous contageous disease is not what this country needs in respect to such a large influx of religious pilgrims.

Read more on Ebola and other dangerous virus diseases:

How Fast can Africa’s Ebola Outbreak Move to the Middle East?

Deadly Middle East Corona Virus May Come From Camels

MERS Risk and Hajj; How to Prepare for a Healthy Pilgrimage

Photo of Removing Body of Ebola Victim by Daily Express/AP

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Polio,or Poliomyelitis has not been a serious medical issue ever since the first wide scale vaccines were developed by Dr. Jonas Salk in the early 1950s.  Within the past few years, however, the often debilitating virus has began to return to epidemic proportions in many parts of the world. This includes the Middle East.

The disease, which can cause permanent paralysis of the central nervous system and debilitation of the muscular and skeletal system, has appeared recently in Egypt, Israel, and particularly in Syria, where a severe breakdown in the county’s sanitation systems due to the ongoing civil war resulted in the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF embarking on a massive campaign to immunize millions of young children in that country as well as in other parts of the Middle East.  

Most of the vaccinations given are the oral polio vaccine or OPV, which was developed by Albert Sabin in the late 1950s and came into general use in 1962.

Israel recently conducted a mass immunization campaign on young children after the polio virus was found in sewers in Jerusalem for the first time in more than 12 years.

The virus was also found last June in raw sewage in the Bedouin town of Rahat in Israel’s Negev region. At that time, the World Health Organization issued an alert about the virus, which had been feared to have spread to Israel from African countries.

(Related: What You Should Know About Polio, posted two years ago in Green Prophet.)

While the present vaccines are effective against the spread of the disease the question may be for how long the vaccinations will be effective until the virus strains build up a resistance to them. In regards to finding solutions to the sanitation issues that may be causing the virus strains to reoccur, this could be very difficult in countries where much of the populations live in grinding poverty.

In the case of Syria, the ongoing war has resulted in an almost complete collapse of the country’s sanitation systems.

“This is a race against time,” The UN’s relief head Valerie Amos was quoted as saying; regarding WHO’s effort to vaccine more than 2.5 million Syrian children.

More articles about Polio and other serious contagious diseases in the Middle East:

What You Should Know About Polio

Bats Blamed for Deadly Middle East MERS Respiratory Virus

Swine Flu Death Toll in Middle East Region

Photo of UNICEF health workers in Za’atari Syria  Children of Syria; Photo of Child Receiving Oral Vaccine: Haaretz/AP

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In February, all energy, shipping and shipbuilding enterprises will be blacklisted as well, the New York Times reports – all to curb the country’s nuclear ambitions. Meanwhile, the government ordered all official buildings, schools and universities to shut down for five days recently in order to dissipate pollution. They are open now, but a cloud of lead, sulfur dioxins and benzene remains aloft. 

Like Cairo under the spell of its black cloud but arguably worse, Iran’s cities are among the world’s most polluted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – beating out the competition in Vietnam and Mexico’s capital cities, according to NYT.

When the winds settle down, the soot of millions of cars and old factories combines with cold air to create a stifling, static cloud that hovers like morning fog with a bite.

The paper reports that Iranians who dare to venture outside their homes protect themselves against stinging, wrought by the chemicals present in the smog.

Others stay home, many crippled by the sanctions that have caused the Rial to plummet and inflation to soar. Food prices are high, so many locals have turned to eggplant instead of chicken.

Pollution and sanctions may not seem like an obvious coupling, but many locals suggest that a homemade fuel concocted in response to fuel shortages have exacerbated the situation, though officials are sensitive to such claims.

Speaking in an interview with NYT, Ali Mohammad Sha’eri, the deputy direct of Iran’s environment protection organization said that only 20 percent of the homegrown fuel meets international standards, though they hope to at least get to 50 percent.

Certain measures are in place to mitigate the pollution, including a plan that stipulates which cars can be on the roads on any given day based on whether the last digit of their license plates is an even or odd number.

These keeps roughly half of the cars off the road every day, which helps, but is no panacea.

When the winds pick up again, the pollution wont’ be as bad. But economic conditions have no hope of repair anytime soon.

:: New York Times

Image of Tehran’s skyline, Shutterstock

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