In the wake of Ebola, African countries should pour more money into research

Ebola shares the nasty distinction with HIV/Aids of not having a cure, or a vaccine.

Ebola also kills you very much faster, and it doesn’t need anything more intimate than a handshake to infect.

The most annoying bit is that these weird pestilences all seem to originate in Africa. Or so we are told by the people who study epidemics.

I know there is a cottage industry right now spinning conspiracy theories about the virus being a man-made bug created as part of germ warfare experiments by a certain superpower. Such is the world, full of wild and hard-to-verify tales.

Whatever it is, Ebola is real. It has practically shut down Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the most affected countries in West Africa. The three countries have virtually been quarantined by the rest of the world.

Most flights to that part of the world have been cancelled. Nigeria, where more than a dozen deaths have also been confirmed, is in panic mode.

The latest country to report an infection is Senegal. The World Health Organisation is warning that before this pestilence is done with us, some 20,000 Africans will die.

What galls is that we are quite defenceless. African countries are notorious for their ramshackle medical and public health infrastructure. Foreign aid workers who have been infected with Ebola have been speedily evacuated to their home countries for treatment.

So far the drugs being applied are experimental. They have not gone through the full cycle of clinical trials. Those developing them are North American, European and Japanese pharmaceutical firms. We are all at their mercy.

BRING IN PROFITS

The problem in our situation is that these pharmaceutical companies (they call them Big Pharma in the US) are not in the business of doing charity in Africa. They are commercial entities first and foremost.

The research and development of medical drugs costs serious money. And since these firms are in business, they tend to concentrate on treatments that bring in the profits.

The profits don’t come from poor Africa. They come from the rich world where “lifestyle” drugs like Viagra and for hypertension bring in piles of cash.

Put simply, Africa is not an attractive market for Big Pharma. One of the treatments being tested for Ebola — ZMapp — will likely turn out to be very expensive by African standards.

It is important that African governments put more money in research for drugs targeting tropical diseases. They should also seek working partnerships between their researchers and Big Pharma on promising tropical treatments.

Besides, there are rich foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that have been doing sterling work in medical research.

For instance, the Gates Foundation is the biggest global player, in terms of funding, the search for a malaria vaccine. Lest we forget, malaria is the biggest killer in Africa, way ahead of Ebola and HIV.

It is in the West’s interest anyway to help subsidise this war on tropical killers. Since Big Pharma won’t do it without some commercial gain, governments can find a way to offset the research and development costs for critical drugs.

SELFLESS

With global air travel the norm today, these exotic viruses are bound to spread fast and to kill very many people.

Foreign charities like Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and Samaritan’s Purse have been outstanding in their contribution in the fight against Ebola in West Africa.

They have been doing selfless work in incredibly dangerous conditions while saving the lives of many Ebola victims.

These foreigners have not volunteered for this work because of the good allowances or because they want to live the congenial lifestyles other expatriates come to enjoy in Africa. Indeed a number of them have been infected by the Ebola virus in the course of their work and died. They are all genuine heroes who will forever be remembered in Africa.

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True to character is Jean-Marie Le Pen, an oddball French politician. He suggested that Ebola could solve the global “population explosion” and by extension Europe’s “immigration problem”.

The French refer to the man as a “far-right” politician, which is a polite way of describing a rabid anti-immigrant bigot.

[email protected] Twitter: @GitauWarigi