SA's contribution to Ebola fight is gaining ground

South Africa's government and big business are donating everything from a mobile crematorium to scooters to help win the still-distant fight against Ebola, but Africa's overall contribution is hard to compute.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said in an interview that it is too early to start saying who is giving what because when the virus started, many countries, and the African Union (AU), believed it was simply going to be an issue for the World Health Organisation (WHO). He said it was only later that countries realised the outbreak was getting out of order.

The Minister was speaking after more talks on the crisis last week between the government, health specialists, business chiefs and foreign diplomats. The Department of Health said in a statement issued at the meeting that to date, 18 firms pledged services, goods and cash in the humanitarian response to West Africa, to the value of R12m. That is nearly R8m more than the last tally two weeks ago, but the appeal for private and public funds - R250m, or about $25m - is still a remote target.

Motsoaledi confirmed that the government had so far budgeted R32m to fighting the epidemic, the death toll from which rose to 4 033 people on Friday, the WHO announced in Geneva. Almost all of the fatalities and suspected cases are in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with more than half in Liberia. A separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 43 lives. SA's support, whether in cash, in kind or in promises, is fairly simple to quantify. Other African governments are either less voluble, less media-savvy in giving out information, or less generous. The WHO said on September 12 that the Congo and Uganda, along with SA, were African contributors to its Ebola appeals.

Motsoaledi said on Friday that Namibia had announced a $1m pledge recently in New York at one of the growing number of Ebola summits and conferences. The African Development Bank has pledged $210m so far. The AU's main help is a technical mission to Liberia under the AU Support to the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, an initiative that has received $10m in funding from the US. SA's Department of Health sent technicians and a mobile laboratory to Sierra Leone in mid-August, conducting 2 000 Ebola tests so far. The next global objective, and the most desperately needed, is to send numerous mobile field hospitals to the danger zone.

They need large numbers of doctors, nurses and other qualified personnel to run properly and safely in highly dangerous environments. The Nelson Mandela and Tokyo Sexwale foundations are involved in plans to send a mobile crematorium, a priority because infected corpses can spread Ebola very rapidly and need to be cremated rather than buried. Four ambulances have been donated by Netcare and CEO Richard Friedland said they had been taken out of the company's existing fleet. He said one of the biggest problems there is transporting patients - many are being carried by taxis, which is highly dangerous. These ambulances can take four patients at a time and can be sterilised and cleaned, he added.

Nicholas Kotch: Business Day, 13 October 2014