Medic not sure ‘Bitter Kola’ prevents Ebola

With the population currently living in fear of the Ebola virus that is lurking in next door in Nigeria, and the spread of sms messages claiming that the eating of ‘Bitter Kola’ prevent the disease.

The Post approached the Director of the Limbe Regional Hospital, Dr Pius Kuwoh Bijingni, who dismissed the claim that ‘bitter cola’ is a curative or preventive substance against the dreadful disease.

Some ‘preventive doctors’ have been flooding the mobile phone lines of the population with a flurry of sms messages, practically prescribing sundry measures that the public can follow in order to keep themselves safe from the virus.

One of the massages prescribed the eating of bitter kola as a safe way to check the virus while other massages have gone as far as asking people to “bath with warm salty water and apply Vaseline ointment for a period of two weeks.”

Others advised the population to desist from consuming ‘bush meat’ and with a special reference to primates like chimpanzees, gorillas, and other animals like bats, pigs among others.

Dr Bijingni advised that, in the meantime, there is no known cure or vaccine against the killer virus, but stated that it was very possible to prevent one from contracting it.

“The cure for Ebola is still hard to come by and, for now, prevention is the cure. The preventive measures are cheap and very easy to come by. For example; hygiene, sanitation is the key,” he said.

The Director, drawing experience from the four West African countries already hit by the virus, said the population needs not be scared. “They simply need to follow the preventive rules of washing their hands properly with soap and, if possible, use hand sanitisers.

Nevertheless, bitter kola, is held by many as having some medicinal properties and is being widely used against some stomach disorders and gastritis by some persons and by some men as an aphrodisiac. But the Hospital Director doubted bitter kola’s potency against Ebola as these anonymous mobile phone sms ‘doctors’ have been claiming.

Meantime, the Director of the World Health Origination, WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, after an emergency meeting of the Organisation, declared that the raging epidemic in West Africa was now “an international public health emergency.”

The WHO Director advised that much needed to be done to prevent any further spread of the virus as some 1,000 persons are already known to have perished from the epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

As to what the Limbe Hospital or the Ministry of Public Health was doing to stem the disease from spreading to Cameroon, the Director of the Hospital, as at August 8, said they were still waiting for “official” instructions from the Ministry. But at the level of the Limbe Hospital, he said, they have been strictly observing what he calls ‘infection control’ measures.

Talking about the symptoms of the disease, Dr Bijingni said they tend to manifest some 21 days after one must have contracted it. He stated that when the virus gets into the system, it deprives the blood of its ability to clot and then, hemorrhages the alimentary tract or canal.

This, he said, leads to what is termed a hemorrhaging fever accompanied by bleeding, since the person’s blood can no longer clot. The patient coughs out blood and blood oozes from other parts of the body accompanied by symptoms of vomiting, and diarrhea.

A report about the disease scare in Sierra Leone, where it has already claimed over 300 lives, states that: "People aren't shaking hands in Freetown any more. There are buckets of chlorine at every restaurant, every office to wash your hands in. A lot of people wander the city wearing medical gloves. So there's high awareness. There is a degree of caution."

The scare, thus, means the Cameroon Government, through its Health Ministry, needs to wake up from slumber and put up quick safeguard measures against the disease.

It is just two years back that Limbe was hit by a virulent cholera outbreak that claimed over 30 lives out of over 400 that were hospitalised. Meantime, reports hold that the entire country suffered the loss of some 4,000 persons during the 2012 cholera outbreak.