We cannot afford knee-jerk reactions to every security challenge facing us

The Ebola outbreak in a few West African countries has reminded me of graduate school.

When I joined graduate school, I planned to study the colonial history of Nairobi focusing on how racial segregation influenced urban planning of Nairobi from 1899 to 1939.

At that time, I had a lingering interest in medical history provoked by a regrettable stint as a research assistant I did with the KEMRI Wellcome Trust here in Nairobi.

At Wellcome Trust, I assumed a position previously held by Dr Kenneth Ombongi, the current principal of Kenya Utalii College. Dr Ombongi remains perhaps among the few reliable analysts of the history of Malaria control in Kenya.

In designing my Ph.D. research, I focused on the politics of racial segregation and failed to look beyond skin pigmentation to see the racist content that justified developing a segregated city.

At the Kenya National Archives, most of the documents I initially examined rarely spoke directly about skin pigmentation. It turned out that the Colonial Office in London found segregation based simply on skin colour unconvincing.

This was because the Asian community in Nairobi, who were neither white nor black, but enjoyed such advance presence in Kenya compared to white settlers, could not easily be discriminated against.

CORDON BETWEEN RACES

Many times, the files I was examining repeatedly made reference to the Medical Officers of Health. Only then did I realise I was looking in the wrong files.

When I examined the Health Department files, it became clear that the content of racial segregation was justified by a reference to concerns about the public health dangers Asians and, by extension, Africans were assumed to pose to whites.

This justification impressed the Colonial Office who, in 1913, enacted the Public Health Ordinance based on recommendations from Prof. William R. J. Simpson.

Simpson recommended a cordon sanitaire between races to prevent the spread of diseases from ‘inherently unhygienic races’ to whites. The approach to controlling people rather than disease vectors soon backfired as the control of plague in Nairobi repeatedly failed.

Are there lessons to learn from history about any approach to dealing with health issues that focuses simply on establishing a protective zone? Are our knee-jerk reactions demanding that Kenya Airways stops all flights to West African countries affected by Ebola not simply misplaced or obviously foolhardy reactions?

EBOLA SCARE

First, West Africa is not flooding with Ebola infected persons. Only a handful of countries are affected. The mass hysteria we want to blow up is unnecessary.

Second, it is not the primary duty of Kenya Airways to control Ebola. True, the airline has responsibilities to us but the primary duty for controlling disease rests with the Ministry and Kenya Airports Authority.

Three, many of us have complained about the US and UK security travel advisories against Kenya. But we are happy to deploy a similar reaction against West African countries. Whenever a travel advisory is issued, the assumption abroad is that the whole country is a security risk. It does not matter that the advisory specifies only a few locations to be avoided.

In the case of Ebola, we speak broadly of West Africa and refer to whole countries when in fact the Ebola-infected spots are few and well-known. We have in fact disregarded WHO statement.

It reads that ‘‘The risk of getting infected on an aircraft is small as sick persons usually feel so unwell that they cannot travel and infection requires direct contact with the body fluids of the infected person.’’ With respect to Nigeria, it states that the identified cases ‘‘are related only to persons who had direct contact with a single traveller who was hospitalised upon arrival in Lagos.’’

Obviously, there is enough knowledge and credible advice on the Ebola issue and we can benefit from a little more knowledge before we overgeneralise.

Godwin Murunga is Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.