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Ebola Concerns: Should the 2015 African Nations Cup be going ahead?

The 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) has been overshadowed by Ebola-phobia, with the football itself falling out of focus due to the unrelenting spread of the disease.

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The 2014 FIFA Club World Cup recently ended with no communication concerning the spread of the Ebola virus to the host country Morocco, where locals, non-Africans and even Africans from the most affected West African region gathered across 10 days – from December 10 to 20 – to watch the club champions of the various continental confederations compete for the title.

More than 200,000 were in attendance, with an average of about 28,000 people per match. The crowds were certainly enough to trigger the fear of an Ebola outbreak in North Africa, yet not one single case was reported.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ebola is spread through direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids, or indirect contact with environments that have been contaminated with these fluids.

For this reason, gathering in groups is not advised in areas where the illness is prevalent, meaning that team sports and especially contact sports become particularly dangerous in terms of the potential spread of the disease, as sweat and blood often forms part of an athlete or sportsman’s typical daily toil, not to mention the huge crowds of supporters that gather to watch these events in cramped stadia with physical contact virtually assured.

Those who supported Morocco for turning down hosting the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations might argue that Ebola did not appear in the Kingdom because teams from the countries where the disease is currently taking lives did not attend the competition.

However, would Morocco have also snubbed the Club World Cup if CAF’s club representatives were a Liberian team? ES Setif from Algeria represented the African continent while Moroccan champions Moghreb Tetouan participated as the host team.

Both clubs are from North Africa. The United Nations and the African Union have called on the lifting of travel bans imposed on visitors from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where the disease has caused more than 7,500 deaths in 2014. In a recent speech, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commented, “The world cannot grind to a halt because of the Ebola outbreak, and the more we cower from the disease and stigmatise people or regions on pretext, the more we heighten the general fear of the virus and scare away even potential health workers.”

Consequently, a number of countries have restored regular flight schedules to the above West African countries, with neighbours reopening their borders to allow commercial exchanges as usual.

Officials in Equatorial Guinea have stated that they would not have accepted the hosting responsibility for the tournament if they had no means to fight against the spread of Ebola.

But Morocco possesses better health facilities and more specialist doctors than the tiny central African nation. So what was really the reason behind their refusal? Many people continue to ask that question.

Many editorialists based south of the Sahara believe that Morocco would have decided otherwise if Ebola had broken out in another North African country. Other journalists quickly and harshly condemn it as a racist decision stemming from a sheer superiority complex.

Moroccan officials have rubbished such interpretations, saying that they were only out to protect the health of their people.

The risk of Ebola is real. It is highly contagious, and gatherings such as those at a continental football tournament could facilitate the spread.

However, there have been prompt and improved control measures, which are now delicately practiced at entry borders in almost every African country. Those could be seen as superficial, but have been highly recommended by local and international epidemiology experts, as well as the WHO.

Equatorial Guinea allayed fears recently by releasing a statement which detailed the steps to be put in place at ports of entry to the country and at stadia where matches will take place during the three-week competition.

STEP 1: Passengers arriving at Malabo international airport from abroad must have their temperature checked.
STEP 2: Passengers will be photographed and have their fingerprints taken, so that they can be easily tracked in case of emergency.
STEP 3: All arriving travellers must fill in medical history forms and show yellow fever certificates.
STEP4: Fans at stadiums will be mandated to use hand sanitizer at the turnstiles.
STEP 5: Thirty Cuban doctors, who are specialists in epidemiology, will be on hand throughout the tournament.

What else should be done in order for the troubled 2015 AFCON to be staged with calm? Morocco had proposed a postponement of six months, but we cannot be sure that the Ebola crisis will have ended by then and if not, will there be another postponement?

Among the three Ebola-hit nations, only Guinea has qualified for the competition. All the team’s players live abroad, and most of them have not stepped foot in Conakry, the country’s capital, for almost a year due to the health crisis.

During the qualifiers, Guinean authorities had proposed that they would accept not to allow local supporters to travel to the finals if they qualified, to avoid stigmatisation. It did not set the minds of Moroccan officials at rest.

The paradox was that they allowed the same Guinean team to play their home qualifiers in Marrakech, a Moroccan city, and will allow them once more to play a pre-Afcon friendly against Senegal in Rabat on January 13.

It raises questions regarding why the Kingdom declined the showpiece and why Equatorial Guinea should be slammed for picking it up and saving face for CAF, but that is another discussion.

AFCON 2015 will go ahead in the cities of Malabo, Bata and Mongomo, and it seems natural that such a decision should be made, as long as the authorities have all of the measures in place to combat the spread of Ebola, with the people of Equatorial Guinea and those visiting from around Africa in mind.


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