BRICS on high alert for Ebola
August 27, 2014, 6:18 am

A passenger, who did not pass the preliminary screening for the Ebola virus, leaves the Delhi International Airport to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital for further medical checkup on Aug. 26, 2014 [Xinhua]

With large population of BRICS workers in the four affected West African nations, the risk to countries like China and India from the virus remains high. The bloc’s engagement with African nations, including the four that have been badly hit, is substantial.

WHO has declared the West Africa epidemic an “extraordinary event” and an international public health emergency.

There are nearly 45,000 Indian nationals living and working in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Chinese commercial counsellor Xiao Mingxiang said last week there are more than 1,500 workers with Chinese companies in Liberia alone.

Although South Africa is thousands of miles from the nearest infected community, the administration has announced its borders closed to people from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Two Ebola virus infection cases, suspected in Russia, have not been confirmed, head of the Russian consumer rights watchdog (Rospotrebnadzor) Anna Popova told reporters on Tuesday in Moscow.

China’s health authorities confirmed on Tuesday that “an observation case of Ebola” has been confirmed not infected.

A Chinese translator back in Beijing on Sunday from Libya was quarantined in a hospital after developing symptoms of fever and vomiting.

China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission later cleared the patient as not infected with Ebola. More than 214,000 Chinese workers were sent to Africa to build infrastructure projects in 2013.

The Chinese government has already set up five supervision groups in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong to screen for possible cases of the virus.

Meanwhile, the Indian Health Ministry has said that none of the 112 passengers who returned from Liberia on Tuesday have Ebola, although one passenger with symptoms of fever was isolated in the quarantine cum isolation facility at Delhi’s international airport and then sent to a local hospital.

Earlier last week, Brazilian Commerce officials cancelled a visit to another African nation, Namibia over fears about Ebola even as Brazil’s government tightened airport and port safety procedures to screen potential cases.

“There are no risks of an outbreak of the disease in our country right now. Brazil has implemented all of WHO’s recommendations. Now, we must bear in mind that an increase in the number of international emergencies does raise a global alert for maintaining international cooperation to prevent the problem from spreading from countries facing outbreaks of the disease,” Brazil’s Health Minister Arthur Chioro was quoted by Agencia Brasil.

BRICS are now Africa’s largest trading partners and its biggest new group of investors. BRICS-Africa trade is seen eclipsing $500 billion by 2015, with China taking the lion’s share of 60 per cent of this, according to Standard Bank.

The Ebola outbreak is the largest to hit Africa till date and some of the world’s poorest regions are struggling to control the spread of the virus, also handicapped by poor health infrastructure.

The Ebola virus, also referred to as Ebola hemorrhagic fever because of one of its most visible symptoms, is an incurable disease with a very high fatality rate. It was first identified in 1976.

Some doctors have noted a fatality rate of at least 60 per cent, but WHO says that can be as high as 90 per cent.

TBP