Before I joined the Atlas Corps Fellows, I was giving a lecture at department of African Studies at the University in Korea and other private companies planning expansion of their business into Africa. Needless to say, I wasn’t even surprised by people who thought Africa is one country.
Due to the geographical reason, old generation like my grand mother hasn’t had a chance to meet foreigners whose skin colors and their languages are different from us. While I was at the school for 12 years from primary school to high school, I also never learned about what Africa is, its dynamic culture, and lovely people.
I can’t blame people of their ignorance of Africa. People’s ignorance of Africa not only falls under Korean also in other countries where they are also seized by Ebola outbreak recently.
One of nurses in the US was fully cured, visited White House and gave a hug to President Obama. Another nurse in Spain also is cured and has left a hospital in Madrid.
According to DCD case counts (November 2, 2014) , There are only three countries with Widespread Transmission such as Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Only two countries (Mali and Senegal) have only 2 cases, which are travel-associated. Nigeria, the second largest country in Africa, has 19people who were confirmed by laboratory for Ebola.
Ebola could be one of the scariest diseases. I believe fighting ignorance of Africa is as crucial as developing medicines for Ebola. I wrote how a song can be effective in terms of raising an awareness of Ebola in Africa in my previous blog.
I would like to introduce one map astonishing me. This map is a simple and it demonstrates Ebola outbreak in West Africa should not be considered as Ebola contaminates whole continent.
<Africa Without Ebola.>
sourced from : http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/11/03/map-the-africa-without-ebola/
One image can have strong voice than thousands of words. One simple maps can show us how we misunderstand Ebola in Africa.