By Ademola Adegbamigbe

From the beginning of time, man has been in constant battle with himself and nature. This ranges from inter-tribal wars to diseases and natural disasters, some of which wipe out large populations like mown wheat. The recurrence of Ebola virus kept me thinking of Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Principle of Population. Was he right or wrong?

This English cleric and scholar wrote that the power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man (food, water, et al) that premature death must, in some shaper or other vices, visit the human race. In his words: “The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction and often finish the dreadful work themselves.” But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly season, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, according to him, “advance in terrific array and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands”. Should success be still incomplete, Malthus argued with images, gigantic famine “stalks in the rear and with one mighty blow levels the population of the world”. Some individuals surely know how to capture human misery with words or symbols!

When the influenza epidemic broke out between 1918 and 1920, it affected over 500 million people in the world and actually killed over 80 million. Dr. C. Hannoun, an expert, claimed that the disease originated from China, landed in Boston, U.S. and later spread to Brest, France and the battlefields of Europe. In fact, historians wrote on Wikipedia that massive troop deployment during World War 1, and modern transportation system “made it easy for soldiers, sailors and civilian travelers to spread the disease”. In August of 1918, a more deadly strain surfaced in France, and made a tour of Sierra Leone (yes, this same Sierra Leone) and Boston in the U.S. The second tidal wave of the epidemic was what the allied soldiers called the Spanish flu.

Each time my late father narrated the story of this 1918 epidemic, I shed tears. His father, who had just married a new wife, asked him to go and live with and work for one of his kinsmen who assisted him in the process of this expansion of his harem. And when the host asked about the pandemic ravaging everywhere, my grandfather replied: “Bury him (my dad) if he dies!” That was the extent of the helplessness of man in the face of global catastrophe. (Fortunately, my dad did not die. He later escaped from his host in Ado-Ekiti, surfaced and worked in the Ashanti Goldfields in present day Ghana where he learnt the ways of the Whiteman till the mid 1930s).

Bubonic plague was, before then, another global pandemic. It came in three tidal waves. First, it landed on the old Byzantine Empire in 542 AD, moving like a dark convoy from Constantinople to other Mediterranean regions like Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.

The second occurred from 1340 to 1400 in Europe, causing what was notoriously called the Black Death. It was the Mongol hordes that brought the disease with them when they attacked Italian merchants. The latter, by extension, took the disease home on their ships and, in the process, wiped off millions.

Asia was also the origin of the third attack in the 19th century. From China, it skittered to the Indian subcontinent in 1896, licking clean 12.5 million people. Thanks to Waldemar Mordecai Haffkins, a Russian Jew and microbiologist who developed a vaccine against the disease (and cholera) at the Pasteur Institute, Paris in 1892. When bubonic plague hit India, the authorities there invited him into a makeship laboratory at Grant Medical College in 1896. That was where he, through his vaccine, saved millions. It would be a waste of time to go into who developed what vaccine to fight influenza here. Rather, let us scroll forward to Ebola, the difference between the United States’ approach and ours.

In the face of global pandemic like this, everyone (rulers and the ruled) is helpless. Diseases travel fast with aircraft, trains, buses and at mass assemblies. Of course, our kids attend schools with others from different homes, headed by peripatetic fathers, assisted by their wives who, apart from frequenting supermarkets, attend religious functions and other places. Disease can be contracted on door knobs, staircase balustrades, public toilet – name it.

That is why when this kind of crisis occurs, nobody is safe. For this reason, Nigeria requires a pro-active approach, not a fire brigade exercise, not only for Ebola, but for future emergencies. The United States did a great job to save the lives of Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, two American doctors working in Liberia who were infected with Ebola. According to a CNN report, the Zmapp vials, stored in subzero temperatures, were flown into Liberia where the two were being treated. It was first applied on Brantly and after his condition improved, he was flown to Emory University, Atlanta, aboard a specially designed Gulfstream air ambulance jet.

Nigeria needs to learn a thing or two about the approach of the West to fighting epidemics or other disasters. While France encouraged the development of the anti-bubonic plague vaccine through Haffkins, the Russian Jew, the United States did not just wake up last month to develop Zmapp. It is a product of well-funded research which took time, government support and heavy funding.

In other words, these countries are pro-active. According to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, although the product is still at experimental stage, treatment of the Americans was arranged privately by Samaritan’s Purse, a humanitarian group that hired one of the Americans. When the group contacted the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the latter asked it to go to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which gave them links to Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., the private company developing the drug. Here, I appeal to President Barack Obama to help Africa with his new drug, not because of his ancestral link with the continent but because of humanity.
Here is what Nigeria needs to take away. We do not have to wait for disasters to happen before responding with a fire brigade approach. The Nigerian government has a lot of money to throw around (allegedly, with a snap of the finger, to cause impeachment of opponent governors in far-flung places). Yet when it comes to supporting scientific research, it is found wanting. If not, no government would allow universities to close down for over six months and polytechnics more.

It is not too late in the day for the federal and state governments to reorder their priorities and spend money on research and encouraging the private sector to do the same. I am not referring to bathing with salt water, palm oil or alcohol or Maurice Iwu’s babalawo bitter kola cure. Let researchers work on that and tell us of its efficacy!

As it is with global pandemic, so it is with other disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. How many skyscrapers in Nigeria can rock back and forth when hit by typhoons? Our engineers, and government, over to you.