Ebola....a brief thought....

It has come to light, according to  David Frost, who is an executive head of the  Southern African Tourism Services Association (or SATSA)),  that some 1 500 tourists from Thailand who were booked to visit the country in September, have cancelled their trip. With smaller groups from Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Japan doing the same. This is due to the fear that they may contract Ebola while on the African continent, This may be just the tip of an ever increasing iceberg. Fear is a terrible thing and causes illogical behaviour. Fear also spreads faster than a comet. This will without doubt, damage African tourism. 

Ebola is a terrible virus that has earned it's reputation for creating fear. Having said that, the outbreak is far from Southern Africa (in terms of distance), at the moment. (I will not be going into the medical or virology side at all here, for now anyway)

With travel, air travel especially, the reach of the tiny terror is pretty much everywhere a plane can land....not just the dark continent. 
With the incubation period between 2-21 days, a person carrying the virus but not showing symptoms, could easily slip into any country without the virus being detected. Then, once the incubation period expires, he/she develops flu like symptoms , while coming into contact with dozens if not hundreds of people, thus exposing them to the Killer Virus. The ripple effect from there is frightening.....but very real. 

I am not one for sensationalism, as many publications are. I have read so many 'facts' about Ebola....from being able to catch it just by seeing in the room with an infected party, to the virus actually being a parasitic worm.  

Sometimes, even if the reality is frightening, authors will add their own spoonful of terror, for good measure. The longer the outbreak lasts and the more time it spends spreading in humans, the more time the virus has to 'learn'.. Mutations are what has kept the flu virus alive, despite our best fight against it....and as The Big E is also a virus,  it would follow that it  may follow the same route. This is what I admire about viruses, they are tiny, yet efficient and adaptable. 

In terms of travel, would avoiding visiting everything that is Africa save you from contracting the Killer E......perhaps. Could somebody from Africa visit your overcrowded country with a virus aboard.....most certainly. Governments on one hand play down the chances of it coming through their borders, but on the other, seem to panic that it will. 
We need to be realistic about this, not play it down. Yes, we also do not want to create a panic, but we do need to have the truth. The public needs to know the truth and what the government's responses will be. We also need to reassure overseas travelers that South Africa  is still a safe destination to visit...well, in terms of Ebola. We have other things that make it pretty unsafe though. Ebola may actually be the least of your worries when visiting. 

Granted, I would not recommend going on vacation in the heartland of Ebola, but there are many African countries where you do not have to worry about contracting the virus, any more than you would in your own land. Education and not fear, is the way to go.