Posted on 10/14/2014 7:37:12 PM PDT by TigerClaws
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) Church leaders in West Africa are raising concerns over sporadic violence that has killed one of their own and frustrated efforts to stem the Ebola epidemic.
The violence took a dangerous turn last week in a remote village in southeast Guinea, when fearful villagers killed eight members of a disinfection and awareness team, including an evangelical church pastor.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionnews.com ...
Explains, in part, why troops are being called up.
How Ebola may eliminate superstition in Guineau
i.e. - Superstitious folks will die from Ebola by stopping appropriate preventative actions.
Wow. That reminds me very much of the Babylon 5 episode “Confessions and Lamentations” — a dreary title, but a magnificent piece of TV.
Darwin gets the opportunity to weed out dangerous beliefs.
More paranoia than superstition.
I follow news closely. I haven’t seen this reported anywhere.
1. Un-PC. Makes Africans look backwards.
2. Politics. Tough to get 1.2 billion for Ebola when the victims are killing healthcare workers sent to help them.
Here’s more info on the African burial practices:
http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/African-Religions.html
Apparently they believe the spirits of the recently departed will haunt their own family unless they do the rituals, which involve touching the corpse.
I have a friend from South Africa and she told me that the reason Ebola spreads so quickly among the black population of Liberia is that the family members of the deceased handle the bodies by washing them before they are laid out or whatever their tradition is.
See link above.
Yes, the relatives handle the bodies.
Apparently in some areas the families are actually bribing local medical officials to put down a different cause of death rather than Ebola so they can keep the bodies to bury them according to their traditions.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
This reminds me of the Babylon 5 scene where G’Kar described his dream for Centauri Prime, with a memorial emblazoned and bright, visible from space, with the words “too stupid to live”.
By all means, fly them here!
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
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