New health alarm: the years go by but it seems to be no longer able to find the peace that Covid has taken away. It is the turn of the new virus Marbug and it is similar to the dangerous Ebola. The Italian newspapers, in these days, greedy for sensationalism, immediately launched the “bomb” on the new threat that could come from Africa: “Marbug, two cases in Ghana: highly contagious virus. WHO: epidemic risk ”, he wrote il Messengered The weather uploaded even more: “Marbug, the new virus that worries the world: how it gets infected, its symptoms and consequences”.
The liturgy of terror returns
Far from conspiracies, which we know by now destroying information, it is good to remember that if on the one hand having news is fundamental, on the other it is even more important try not to cause panic in an exhausted people – both economically and morally – and that still, even if everyone says the opposite of everything, is fighting with Covid in light of the skyrocketing infections of the last few weeks regardless of vaccines, safety devices and measures. And in the general chaos – and media – where it is inevitable to feel disoriented, afraid and unmotivated, we certainly do not need further terrorism on a new virus which, if history teaches us to be very dangerous and therefore worthy of attention, currently records 2 cases at the moment. world.
The Marbug virus: what it is
The two people who were infected – and unfortunately died – were registered in Ghana: “The health authorities are on the ground to investigate the situation and prepare for a possible response to the epidemic. We are working closely with the country to increase the level of detection, keep track of contacts and be ready to control the spread of the virus “, explained – in fact – Dr. Francis Kasolo, representative for the World Health Organization in Ghana. .
The role of the WHO and the Marbug virus
It is not the first time, as we learn from the WHO itself, that this virus has hit but it is certainly the first time that in Italy it is transformed into scary news. In fact, in recent years there have been outbreaks and sporadic cases in Angola, the Dominican Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and – in 2022 – in southern Guinea. Information, however, which evidently did not arouse attention at the time, was not fertile ground for public opinion when the mania of sanitary terror was not yet in fashion.
To add concern is in fact the WHO which declares: “A series of possible treatments are being evaluated, including blood products, immune and pharmacological therapies”. This is because – we learn – there are no specific cures or vaccines as they never have.
Alarmism returns
In the wake of the alarmism of the World Organization, an Italy that has lately been juggling between war emergency and Covid emergency could not be left behind: “What happens in another continent cannot fail to concern us”, affirms Carlo Federico Perno, clinical virologist and head of Microbiology and Immunology Diagnostics at the Bambin Gesù Pediatric Hospital in Rome. A warning that frightens us and that reminds us of 2020 and that Chinese couple hospitalized at Spallanzani who, albeit from another continent, were the beginning of that pandemic that changed the world.
And the virologist adds: “Omicron 5 is the proof: it is spreading almost synchronously all over the world due to the movements of millions of people. These things will happen more and more ”. And, according to what the professionals say and how the press spreads the news, it would really seem that “these things” really happen in record time, one after the other without letting Italians breathe. Covid always at the forefront, but also monkeypox (which for weeks was the protagonist of television pages and talks and now seems to be a distant memory) and now Marbug. If Covid taught us that, regardless of questionable political management or not, in the face of health there is no strategy that holds, at least we should have learned that the strategy of fear is just one more incentive to knock out a nation. Evidently, however, this is not the case: 2 cases in the world and “We work to manage an epidemic”: this is it.
Bianca Leonardi, July 10, 2022