Kenya should fund research on Ebola and all other viral ‘African diseases’
What you need to know:
- The US army, the Centre for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health have been actively involved in researching or funding research on these diseases. A handful of pharmaceutical companies are also involved, but much more still needs to be done.
- We need to actively protect ourselves. A virus can only be observed under the electron microscope. During my studies, there were only two electron microscopes in Kenya, one at ILRI and another at Kemri.
In our medical microbiology class, we dismissed the economic importance of viral diseases, except one: The Human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV).
Indeed, since the elimination of the small pox virus in 1979, only HIV has received much attention. We have underestimated the threats posed by the so-called “African viruses”.
The current Ebola threat in the US should awaken the scientific community on the need to focus more on these rare, but deadly diseases. This is not the first scare in the US, which in 2012 experienced one of its worst epidemics of the West Nile Virus. In 2012, WNV killed 286 people in the United States, with Texas being hard hit by this virus.
MARBUG VIRUS
There are many other neglected African viral diseases that need to be studied and remedies sought. You may have never heard of them, but they include the marburg virus currently wreaking havoc in Uganda, Crimean-Congo haemorhagic fever virus, Yellow Fever virus, dengue virus and Chikungunya virus, among others.
The US army, the Centre for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health have been actively involved in researching or funding research on these diseases. A handful of pharmaceutical companies are also involved, but much more still needs to be done.
In Kenya, how much have we done to prepare ourselves against these diseases? I am not talking about Ebola! I don’t want to imagine its arrival in Kenya, but can we handle the calamity? The Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenyatta National Hospital and the University of Nairobi are not sure, or else they would tell us.
We need to actively protect ourselves. A virus can only be observed under the electron microscope. During my studies, there were only two electron microscopes in Kenya, one at ILRI and another at Kemri.
When we went to Kemri to see how it works, it was not working. The machine had broken down and they were waiting for a technician from Canada to fix it.
Monkeys and fruit bats act as a reservoir for the Ebola virus. The National Museums of Kenya should be praised for establishing the Institute for Primate Research. I have visited the facility and I can proudly confirm that they are doing a good job.
The Institute should collaborate with Icipe and Kemri to do more on the zoonotic diseases such as Ebola. But they should also research on other neglected African diseases. The government should adequately fund these institutions so that they can achieve the feat.
MUTWIRI WA NKONGE, Chuka
