Is Africa Getting The ‘Stiff Arm’ Over Ebola?

It is a question many on the continent are asking as the international fallout from the Ebola virus scare continues. Stories published about the extraordinary measures some countries have taken in recent weeks, even within Africa, to stem the spread of the deadly illness persist. Continue...

Travel from West Africa to the United States continues without interruption, as officials from the U.S. State Department say that they do not plan to make any changes that call for travel bans.

Yet, the fallout over the Ebola virus in other countries over the disease regarding air travel is surprising. On Saturday, Kenyan government officials announced a ban on citizens from the three West African countries hit hardest by the disease from entering their country by air. That ban affects citizens who plan to fly east from Guinea, Sierre Leone, and Liberia from entering Kenya.

But the impact and fear over the Ebola virus is taking shape in a variety of ways that cover not only air travel, but general commerce, sporting and religious events, even attendance at some universities. The impact on Africans who are free of the disease is showing a disturbing upward trend off of the continent. 

The story of a growing move of african exclusion first appeared on the website Media Equalizer. This story's accompanying photo is from a restaurant in based Seoul, South Korea. It is a sign posted in the window of one establishment, written in both Korean and in English, saying the establishment is refusing to serve all black people due to fears over Ebola. The photo in the tweet, placed on the Internet within the last 24 hours, is going viral as SaharaReporters goes to press.

While the Ebola virus gives the Seoul-based pub an excuse to bar Black people, there appears to be a trend in other recent instances.  

In a story reported by Dynamix Magazine, an online publication, universities based in the United Kingdom have announced plans to screen Nigerian students admitted into their campuses for the Ebola Virus Disease.

The news of that extreme measure was reported in the The Independent newspaper on Sunday. The Dynamix Magazine article says that the alert by Universities UK, the umbrella body that represents vice-chancellors, was issued because the universities are expecting new students to arrive from West Africa.

Ironically, the three countries hit hardest by Ebola cases: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have hardly any students enrolling at UK-based universities, while Nigeria which has also had just 10 confirmed cases of Ebola, is the fourth largest supplier of international students to UK universities.

A spokesman for the UK body said to The Independent newspaper, “the issue is very much on universities’ radars. We circulated to universities the publicly available guidance on the topic.”

The guidance makes it clear that any student suspected of having Ebola should immediately be isolated in a side room away from any member of staff or student contact.

But it is not just university issues of screening that have come to light.

In recent days, athletes from Nigeria have been forced to withdraw from the Youth Olympics in China as a result of the outbreak, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

The International Olympic Committee recently barred athletes from Ebola-hit countries from competing in pool events, and in combat sports. The reasoning is that the disease is spread by contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids, such as sweat, blood and tissue.

Reaction has also been swift. Ayo Otepola, Nigeria's Consul General in Shanghai, who travelled to that city to coordinate Nigeria’s "orderly withdrawal" from the Games, was bitter.

Otepola told a croup of reporters that China’s approach was “much harsher” than that of Scotland, which was host of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Several witnesses in China allege that Nigeria’s athletes were isolated and barred from training alongside others at the games all over concerns of Ebola.

''The athletes complained of total stigmatization, (that) they were quarantined and this action demoralized them," Otempola told the News Agency of Nigeria. The story was picked-up and circulated during the Shanghai games by the on-line publication called ‘Inside The Games.’

Both Nigeria and Sierra Leone were forced out of Shanghai Youth Olympic games, according to several published reports.

The stigmatizing of African nationals over Ebola may have begun back as early as August 5th, when government officials in Saudia Arabia suspended more than 7,200 visas of those planning to visit that country during the Haj ceremonies there.

Mohammad Al-Homoud, the charge d'affaires at the Saudi Embassy in the Guinean capital of Conakry, said back then that the decision to suspend the visas was issued some time back. Months before in fact, dating back to April, when the spread of the Ebola virus was first reported and prior to the current explosion impacting the three countries hit hardest in Western Africa.

"The governments in these countries were very much understanding of the decision, which aims mainly to boost prevention measures against the spread of the virus because the second wave of it has already kicked off," said Al-Homoud at the time.

Since the suspension of the visas governments in different countries have issued different policies, with local civic groups taking actions on their own.

The same actions since news of the spread of the disease has caused some to fear that Ebola may be also used as a pretext to discriminate against Africans, irrespective of what nation they may call home.