Ever considered that one
time when situation baffled you and bedbugs or fleas transported themselves to
your house which was otherwise declared free and secured from the pests, or for
that matter, remember a time when rats suddenly showed up in corners of your
houses building a community?
A little detective
thinking will suddenly bring to mind the house being furnished some time back with
furniture and other decorative products transported all the way from down south
of the country (across borders). Further probe will bring to notice that the
objects were probably stored for a good duration in storehouses that easily
favor breeding places for the tiny bugs, fleas, bedbugs and rodents. In other
matters you may also recall that visiting relatives from the countryside may
also have imported some of the ‘fine creatures’ through their belongings, inner
wears etc.
The vivid dramatization
aside, point being established here in all seriousness and on a nationwide
scale, is that of how fine details can be ignored, and how they may be
consequential to letting totally unnecessary and even harmful entities take
root in-country.
The deadly disease Ebola
is making news on an hourly basis and obviously for not the most pleasant of
reasons.
One would wonder why the
microscopic virus creating havoc continents away from this country, should be
of any level of concern. Well, that
thought is not entirely wrong but maybe not completely correct to be assumed in
all confidence.
The country of
once-upon-a-‘self-imposed-isolation-policy’-time is changed, and changed very
sweepingly. It is open to the world outside and people move in and out every
day.
Under current global
situations in the wake of containing Ebola and preventing its further spread, it
should cross everyone’s minds that the virus making a visit is not really impossibility.
It is comforting that the
health ministry has already issued an advisory to travelers of staying vigilant and taking heed of the
disease. There are Bhutanese working as health workers in Congo, but they are
not infected and remain safe. Meanwhile, Bhutanese people still continue to
travel to these countries designated as risk areas for Ebola, while at the same
time visitors from outside also continue to enter Bhutan. Authorities should
also ensure that passengers both nationals and internationals have undergone a
screening process at the different gateways.
In this, a line
unavoidably comes to mind that “eternal vigilance is the price of safety.” And
perhaps we should all take heed and do just that, while also alerting and
educating everyone else around us.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak is
one of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history and the first in West Africa. It
is affecting four countries in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and
Sierra Leone. So far it has claimed thousands of lives in the affected countries
and recently health workers have also been reported to be infected.
Published as Business Bhutan Editorial on October 18, 2014
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