The outbreak of Ebola in four countries in West Africa has claimed at least 1,350 people, according to the World Health Organisation’s recent announcement.
The WHO has already declared the outbreak of this disease as an “extraordinary event” and “public health risk to other countries.”
While prevention is always better than cure, in this case prevention seems to be the only cure.
As I follow the news on Ebola with keen interest, it has evoked my memories when I served in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan when the outbreak of Ebola was reported in Uganda between July and August 2012.
As the UN alerted all its personnel serving in the South Sudan mission and issued advisory on the do’s and don’ts to be followed strictly, we were greatly worried about our well being as South Sudan is a war ravaged country with little medical infrastructure in place.
I extensively googled about this deadly disease and found that Ebola is a highly infectious disease and it spreads through physical contact like shaking hands and kissing.
Before our deployment in the mission area in South Sudan, we were adequately sensitised by the UN during the induction programme about the culture, mannerisms and values of the South Sudanese people.
As part of the programme, we and the UN police were deployed for duties. We used to visit local police stations in the area of deployment and the local police welcomed us by shaking hands. And that is where the trouble lies and it became our biggest worry of getting infected with the Ebola virus.
If we did not respond to their social gesture, we feared that they might get offended or even antagonised. This would lead to non-cooperation from the local community in carrying out the mandate of the UN Mission successfully.
On the one hand, we were not supposed to offend the local people by refusing to shake hands, while on the other we were greatly worried about this physical contact for any possible infection of Ebola virus.
Survival Strategies –
Namaste, the Indian custom to greet friends and colleagues, was used as a survival strategy. As police officers from various countries with different cultural backgrounds deployed in the mission, we Indians somehow managed to show our respect whenever others came forward to shake hand by proper Indian way of folding both the hands and slightly leaning forward.
Though this way of Indian greeting initially puzzled and surprised the local population and officers from different countries, when we explained them about our culture and its gracefulness, they humbly started responding to it by folding their hands. This way we were able to obviate the possibility of avoiding physical contact and the possible virus without offending them. This method restored confidence in us and created a sense of security in us. Indian namaste could prove to be efficacious in not only preventing Ebola but also many other highly infectious and deadly diseases spreading through physical contact.
As maintaining hygiene to the high standard is paramount to avoid the infection of this deadly virus, we used to carry ‘sanitizers’ in sufficient quantity to sanitise our hands every now and then to ensure absolute hygiene.
As Ebola could be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact and body fluids, including ‘sweat’, to avoid any possibility of bodily contact while working with the South Sudanese police personnel, we used to wear ‘wind cheater’ covering full hands and gloves to avoid any contact with their ‘sweat’ and possible virus infection.
Fortunately, though the Ebola virus did not come to South Sudan, we certainly felt secured with these simple yet effective precautions. On completion our mission successfully, I came back to India during November 2012 not only hale and healthy but also with lifetime memories, including moments of joy and togetherness in life-threatening situations.
Through Namaste we were able to obviate the possibility of avoiding physical contact and the possibility of getting Ebola virus without offending the locals
