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1. What is Ebola virus disease? Ebola virus disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) is a severe, often fatal illness, with a death rate of up to 90%. The illness affects humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees). Ebola first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in a village near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the other in a remote area of Sudan. The origin of the virus is unknown but fruit bats (Pteropodidae) are considered the likely host of the Ebola virus, based on available evidence. 2. How do people become infected with the virus? In the current outbreak in West Africa, the majority of cases in humans have occurred as a result of human-to-human transmission. Infection occurs from direct contact through broken skin or mucous membranes with the blood, or other bodily fluids or secretions (stool, urine, saliva, semen) of infected people. Infection can also occur if broken skin or mucous membranes of a healthy person come into contact with environments that have become contaminated with an Ebola patient’s infectious fluids such as soiled clothing, bed linen, or used needles. More than 100 health-care workers have been exposed to the virus while caring for Ebola patients. This happens because they may not have been wearing personal protection equipment or were not properly applying infection prevention and control measures when caring for the patients. Health-care providers at all levels of the health system – hospitals, clinics, and health posts – should be briefed on the nature of the disease and how it is transmitted, and strictly follow recommended infection control precautions. WHO does not advise families or communities to care for individuals who may present with symptoms of Ebola virus disease in their homes. Rather, seek treatment in a hospital or treatment centre staffed by doctors and nurses qualified and equipped to treat Ebola virus victims. If you do choose to care for your loved one at home, WHO strongly advises you to notify your local public health authority and receive appropriate training, equipment (gloves and personal protective equipment [PPE]) for treatment, instructions on proper removal and disposal of PPE, and information on how to prevent further infection and transmission of the disease to yourself, other family members, or the community. Additional transmission has occurred in communities during funerals and burial rituals. Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person have played a role in the transmission of Ebola. Persons who have died of Ebola must be handled using strong protective clothing and gloves and must be buried immediately. WHO advises that the deceased be handled and buried by trained case management professionals, who are equipped to properly bury the dead. People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. For this reason, infected patients receive close monitoring from medical professionals and receive laboratory tests to ensure the virus is no longer circulating in their systems before they return home. When the medical professionals determine it is okay for the patient to return home, they are no longer infectious and cannot infect anyone else in their communities. Men who have recovered from the illness can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery. For this reason, it is important for men to avoid sexual intercourse for at least 7 weeks after recovery or to wear condoms if having sexual intercourse during 7 weeks after recovery. Generally, a person must come into contact with an animal that has Ebola and it can then spread within the community from human to human. 3. Who is most at risk? During an outbreak, those at higher risk of infection are: health workers; family members or others in close contact with infected people; mourners who have direct contact with the bodies of the deceased as part of burial ceremonies. More research is needed to understand if some groups, such as immuno-compromised people or those with other underlying health conditions, are more susceptible than others to contracting the virus. Exposure to the virus can be controlled through the use of protective measures in clinics and hospitals, at community gatherings, or at home. 4. What are typical signs and symptoms of infection? Sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat are typical signs and symptoms. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts, and elevated liver enzymes. The incubation period, or the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days. The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms. They are not contagious during the incubation period. Ebola virus disease infections can only be confirmed through laboratory testing. 5. When should someone seek medical care? If a person has been in an area known to have Ebola virus disease or in contact with a person known or suspected to have Ebola and they begin to have symptoms, they should seek medical care immediately. Any cases of persons who are suspected to have the disease should be reported to the nearest health unit without delay. Prompt medical care is essential to improving the rate of survival from the disease. It is also important to control spread of the disease and infection control procedures need to be started immediately. 6. What is the treatment? Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. They are frequently dehydrated and need intravenous fluids or oral rehydration with solutions that contain electrolytes. There is currently no specific treatment to cure the disease. Some patients will recover with the appropriate medical care. To help control further spread of the virus, people that are suspected or confirmed to have the disease should be isolated from other patients and treated by health workers using strict infection control precautions. 7. What can I

If Kate Azuka Omenugha had allowed the limitations normally imposed on the girl child in Nigeria’s rural settings weigh her down, she will not today be a Professor of Mass Communication. Her life’s narrative, therefore, is a classical example of a local village woman who brazed the odds of socio and cultural limitations not only to attain the topmost height in her profession but to intellectually engender women’s’ concerns. It was with passion that she spoke on ‘reckoning with the gender factor in election reporting’ as a resource person during the IPC/UNDP DGD11 training workshop for journalists in Enugu last February. Shortly after, in this interview, she offered more insight into her thoughts and perspectives on the empowerment and development of women in the context of gender. Having held sway as the Director of the campus radio of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK fm), Akwa, Anambra state, and Head of Department of Mass Communication of same institution, she currently serves as the Commissioner for Education in Anambra State. Excerpts: On the issues with women and gender equality Globally, there are gender perspectives on issues, which most times favour men to the disadvantage of women. Also, all over the world, there have been agitations with efforts to eliminate all forms of violence and discrimination against women, but we are aware that a lot of factors have actually impeded the transformation that we so much desire. Some of these impediments are cultural issues within the society which put women down in so many areas. We also have a lot of gender based violence like rape which affects women, but there is a lot of resistance mainly from the men folk who want the status quo to remain. Men see any effort you make as a form of competition; that is, women competing with men. But what we are asking is that we be treated equally as human beings. On how gender advocacy affect the market or village woman Gender issue affects her because what we are advocating for is that she, as a woman be treated equally as human beings; that her husband treats her with love and she be treated as a human being. I have lived in the village all my life. My father was a school principal going from one village to the other and I lived in the village and got married in the village. It is in the village that I had operated all these years and it is from there that I got my scholarship to Britain. When I finished, I came back and stayed in the village and it is from there that I got my professorship and all other things. I have been a leader of Catholic Women Organization in my village and have brought a lot of changes to their lives by the way I talk and relate with them and by the role modelling I do and the structures I put in place for them. On what keeps her connected to the grassroots despite being a professor It is my passion for women and my love for people who are dis-empowered in so many ways. When people see me, they ask, ‘why are you in the village, why not come and live in the city? I tell them: ‘I am a role model for many people who seeing me drive past them in the village say to themselves, I want to be like her’. Some times when I am driving and see an old woman on the road, I stop and ask her to come inside the car, and this makes me connected to them because I understand their plight. I understand what it means to be a woman in every sense of the word and I understand what it is to feel a form of dis-empowerment. I have been staying there for twenty five years and I have a connection with them. On the common view that women are women’s enemy When people say that, I tend to see their point of view but I know that most times, women don’t act alone. They have a lot of pressure from their husband and their own family members so it is not only about them taking decisions. Most women would need to ask the husband or ask a male friend or male relative before they take a decision because right from time, it has been imbued in them that women lack voice and a will of their own. So it is not that women do not want to support women, but it is a result of the pressure that they have from men; their husband, a male companion or relative, a male son, etc, and this is an endemic problem. Unless women are aggressively educated to take decisions on their own that will continue. So it is not that women don’t support their fellow women, but it is due to pressures from male influences. On the values that keep her going My parents were very close and carried each other along. I learnt that from them. So I call or send several text messages to my husband each day. This is one of the things that I learnt from my parents and that is why he could allow me to leave him and my six children to go and study in the UK all alone and he was able to support himself and keep the family together till I came back. So it is a question of trying to balance the two. My husband supports my gender and feminine cause and he lets me be at anytime and I also let him be. On the question of women not confronting men in order to keep the peace I don’t know whether it is a general thing but perhaps most people do, but this is because from childhood, women have been told and taught to keep quiet. “Don’t talk, you are a woman, sit like a woman”, and this and that. So it