Link to news
Summary:
A 2 year old boy called Emile, living in Guinea, was the first patient to be infected with Ebola, triggering the 2014 Ebola outbreak. He passed the virus to 3 of his family members and all had fever, vomiting and bloody diarrhea and died. Emile's father is still recalling the fond memories of his family before Ebola almost destroyed it completely. Ebola then spread rapidly to Liberia, Sierra Leone through a series of unsafe burial practice and treatment of patients. Some countries had a mini outbreak of Ebola too, like Spain, Nigeria, US and Senegal. The village that Emile was living in started to have its economy disintegrating as nobody wanted to buy their products anymore.
Opinion:
In my opinion, I believe that Emile's mother should report this case immediately so that people could quarantine Emile and all his contacts to prevent the outbreak. I feel that West Africa is so vulnerable to outbreaks like Ebola because of the poor sanitation and limited healthcare. The people there also love eating bushmeat, which comes from hunting wild animals such as monkeys and bats that can carry the virus. They also carry out their traditional burial rituals which involves touching the body and this is how Ebola is spread. As for Singapore, I believe that there is a really low risk of the disease migrating here due to our advanced healthcare system. People returning from West Africa must be regularly monitored once arriving here. Furthermore, Ebola is not spread by air like SARS and smallpox.