Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, January 24-30, 2020
By Ifeanyi Nsofor
Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is a
medical doctor, the CEO of
EpiAFRIC, Director of Policy
and Advocacy for Nigeria
Health Watch
ABUJA, Jan 21 2020 (IPS)
- The coronavirus outbreak
— which began in Wuhan,
China, and causes a pneumonia
like illness — is raging
across Asia, infecting close
to 300 people and killing
four. It was initially known
to be transmitted from animals
to human, and was just
confirmed to be transmitted
from human to human.
The rapid nature of its
origin and speed in transmission
reminds us that
national security is threatened
when a pathogen can
travel from a remote village
to major cities on all continents
in 36 hours. Therefore,
global health security should
be given the same priority as
national security.
The history of infectious
disease outbreak is not new.
In 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic
infected about 500
million people globally (a
third of world’s population
then) and caused the death
of 20 million to 50 million
victims.
The 2014 -2015 Ebola outbreak
in Liberia, Guinea and
Sierra Leone infected 28,000
and killed over 11,000. By the
end of the West Africa Ebola
outbreak, the three nations
lost a combined GDP of $2.8
billion.
Infectious diseases continue
to be a huge problem.
Of recent, Ebola and measles
outbreaks in DRC have killed
2236 and over 6,000 respectively.
The ease of travel in today’s
global community means the
world must always be prepared
for disease outbreaks.
It is no longer whether an
infectious disease outbreak
would happen but when.
Globally, 100,000 aircraft
carry millions of passengers
from one city to the other
daily. A visit to flightradar24.
com puts this in perspective
and shows how interconnected
countries are.
International borders
really do not protect against
infectious disease outbreaks.
This is why governments,
national public health institutes,
communities, private
sector and global health
actors must act rapidly to
contain this outbreak and
others happening elsewhere.
Also, processes must
be put in place to prevent
future outbreaks. These are
four interventions to ensure
response and prevention
happen.
First, increased screening
at international borders using
computerized thermal cameras
should be intensified. No
one should be exempt from
this screening no matter how
highly placed they are.
In 2015, the global health
community learnt the hard
way the dangers of giving
preference to diplomats
in the way Patrick Sawyer
moved freely from Monrovia
to Lagos despite being
already infected with Ebola.
That oversight led to
a short Ebola outbreak in
Nigeria which could have
gotten out of hand if not
for quick response mounted
by Nigerian authorities and
other global health organisations.
Beyond international
air borders, most countries
have very porous and poorly
manned land borders.
To overcome this challenge,
communities along
these borders must be properly
informed about this current
outbreak, its presenting
symptoms and who to call
when they suspect individual
have symptoms.
Second, prepare for the
spread of fake news on infectious
diseases and be proactive
about pushing out the
right information to counter
it. Community education is
very important, especially at
this time when the infection
By Jumaane Williams
New York City’s public advocate
The recent rise in hate crimes
and anti-Semitic attacks in our
city and our state are a stark
reminder that the human condition
is ever a work in progress.
It is in moments like these that
our society must commit to
work even harder to find common
ground and provide a space
for healing and honest conversations.
I believe part of those conversations
must include revisiting
our history so it can serve as
a lesson for the future. In this
moment, I think about a small
sliver of blocks in Manhattan in
particular.
It’s called Freedom Place — a
stretch of city pavement from
66th to 70th Sts. off West End
Ave. that was dedicated over 50
years ago to the memories of
James Chaney, Michael Schwerner
and Andrew Goodman.
Three civil rights workers —
one black and two Jewish men
brutally murdered by members
of the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia,
Mississippi on the night
of June 21, 1964. Their deaths
helped spark the passage of the
1965 Voting Rights Act.
As time has passed, many
New Yorkers may not remember
who Chaney, Schwerner and
Goodman are. They, like the
civil rights age, belong to old
black and white videos from a
bygone time. But a quick search
will reveal the infamous and
gut-wrenching photo of Chaney,
Schwerner and Goodman at the
top of the page. They are lying
dead in a shallow grave, shot to
death through the heart. Looking
at that photo of the three
men lying face down in the dirt,
it’s pretty hard to tell the difference
between them.
The point of raising the
memory of these three isn’t to
romanticize African-American-
Jewish relations, but to point
out that in various points in our
mutual histories, the two communities
have worked together
to address societal ills. That we
must raise our collective voices
together not only to condemn
instances of anti-Semitism and
racism, but create meaningful
platforms to have dialogue
about the underlying causes of
these incidents. Knee-jerk reactions
to score political points
while funding some causes and
not others really doesn’t help
solve the problem in the longterm.
Seven years ago, as members
of the City Council, my colleague
David Greenfield and I co-sponsored
a trip for a multi-racial
group of students from Yeshivah
of Flatbush and Brooklyn
College Academy to commemorate
Holocaust Remembrance
Month. The students spent the
morning at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage learning about the
mass murder of Jewish peo-
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Continued on Page 11
Continued on Page 11
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Why the Coronavirus
should worry us all
My King Day dream: New
Yorkers should talk to one
another across racial and
cultural divides
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus
particles (yellow) both budding and attached to
the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). NIAID
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