THE EBOLA

The word Ebola hides a very grave disease behind its sweet sounding name and only a lucky few have escaped from its grip.The mortality rate of the disease is almost 90% with horrible end symptoms. Ebola is a virus disease and as such there is no effective medicine for it other than the best clinical care.  The disease is capable of spreading from one person to other through fluids of the sick person and it is also possible by other means in close contacts. Once contracted, the symptoms like fever, muscle pain, headache etc. start soon and in its progress it affects liver and kidneys as blood pressure comes down due internal bleeding. As the initial symptoms can be mistaken for other diseases it can contaminate easily to the unsuspecting bystanders.

The Ebola virus was discovered as early as 1976 when the disease appeared first time in Congo near the Ebola River which gave the disease its beautiful name. The virus contaminated humans from pigs and monkeys and some of those animals often carry the Ebola virus in African countries. Anyway now several African countries report Ebola cases.

 Since the disease is spreading far and wide with a new-found vigour the world health organisation is keenly watching it and helping the affected countries earmarking $100 M for controlling the disease. As the disease is prone to quick contamination specially trained nurses are required for the patients and the nurses have to be relieved from duty in 4 to 6 weeks due to stress. The affected countries have declared Medical emergency in their respective countries.

At present the disease is mainly found in three African countries, Liberia, Sierra Leon, and Guinea and the disease has so far claimed officially about 729 lives and 1323 are under treatment. Patrick Sawyer, an American citizen who was working in Liberia died of Ebola, making him the first citizen to die outside the affected African countries.

No effective anti-viral for Ebola has yet developed, at least officially. But we can rest assured that it would not take much time to it especially in the light of the horrible nature of the disease.

The healthcare infra structures in developed countries are so efficient that even a deadly disease like Ebola is incapable of   making much impact there. However the disease has to be eradicated  as early as possible for the welfare of countries which have lesser infra structure to combat the disease.



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India's stand on the Gaza issue

It is not correct to interpret India’s stand on the Israel-Gaza conflict as a confused one.  On the contrary

the stand taken by India is fair and sensible both at the Parliament and at the U N. In the parliament the B J P took the stand that both Palestine and Israel are India’s friends and it is not proper to discuss an issue pertaining to those countries in the Parliament and adopt a resolution one way or other. Though the matter got discussed in the Parliament no resolution condemning any nation was passed. The external affairs Minister deserve praise for smoothly guiding and culminating the discussion in a harmless way and thus defeating the opposition parties’ intention of exposing Government’s mind in the matter.

In fact, discussing and adopting a resolution in the Parliament against a nation is a serious matter and should be reserved for extreme cases in which the nation that passes the resolution should also be an affected party and I do not know whether any other nation other than India has discussed the Gaza issue in their parliament. India too would not have discussed the internal matter of a couple of nations in the Parliament unless the opposition parties insisted for it and disrupted other proceedings in the Parliament.

At the U.N Human rights Council, in Geneva, India supported the resolution along with BRIC nations of Russia, China Brazil and South Africa. India cannot abstain from voting nor vote against the resolution as it cannot take a sudden different stand in foreign policy without proper reason. India never supported violence in west Asia.

The voting pattern clearly shows the mind of world nations in the matter. The U S is the only nation that voted against the resolution. While the majority of 29 nations supported the resolution to launch a probe in the Israel’s offensive in Gaza 17 European nations abstained from voting. The passage of the resolution clearly reflected the feeling among nations that the Israeli reprisal is disproportionate to the Palestine attack and somehow the war must end soon.
The U S must also be thinking on that line but would not openly agree it.

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