Ignorance kill faster (or painfully and slowly) than any known disease, its self, a disease. While no known pathogen or toxin could yet be blamed for the OndoX disease, which so far has killed 18 persons and the morbidity of 5 others, empirical approaches are being pursued to ascertain the causative agent(s) through laboratory analysis of body fluids and tissues samples.
Unfortunately, while health workers and epidemiologist were putting pieces of information together in search of answers and to forestall the spread of a disease that came out of the blue, ignorance rose its ugly head. Suddenly, the gods gained relevance and the masses flocked like sheep to shrines to offer sacrifices and appease some Omnipotent scary looking sacred wood carving of a deity called Molokun.
According to its (Molokun) handler, the deity is angry that artifacts and objects used in its worship had been stolen from a secret chamber in its shrine, apparently by youths that are eager to gain supernatural powers and wealth. And in reaction, the deity sent plaques to ravage the populace as atonement of their sin. According to the high chief priest :
"We have to appease the gods or else many will still die and we have to bury them according to tradition. Their corpses belong to the gods and will be exhumed if buried by their families.''
Everything sounds more or less like a script from one or lots of the ancient styled Nollywood home videos. But just how the supposedly educated masses of the affected region fell and bought the dummy story of a furious god who couldn't even guard its priced valuables but brought cruel vengeance on the masses is exactly the ignorance I described earlier. The people rush to appease the furious god, begged for pardon and a halt to the spread of the disease.
As if their sacrifices had "reached the gods" then there was a halt to spread of the disease - people stopped dying - and no further cases of the disease symptoms were reported. Alas, the gods are back in business, just out of ignorance !
Only if, the masses had waited for laboratory results could they have been saved the embarrassment of knowing that a toxin/poison is the likely cause of the disease and not the gods. Preliminary laboratory test results showed that the disease is the result of ethanol poisoning - possibly by methanol.
Methanol is chemical compound related to ethanol - the intoxicating compound in alcoholic drink. Depending of the conditions of fermentation in production of alcoholic drinks, significant quantity of methanol would be produced in the alcohol broth. Consumption of such alcoholic drinks - contaminated by methanol - leads to an almost instant blindness and sometimes death within some period of time.
So far, documented symptoms of OndoX are on par with those, characteristic of methanol poisoning and according to the Ondo State Commissioner for Health, the source of the disease has been traced to alcoholic drinks consumed by the victims,
"Our investigations revealed that the victims, who are commercial motorcyclists, gathered at some local joints to take alcoholic substance mixed with roots and some other local herbs on the eve of the outbreak of the disease...We strongly suspect ethanol poison and in view of this, we have ordered for another toxicology test for surviving victims," Mr. Adeyanju said.
Methanol poisoning from alcoholic drinks have previously been reported from other countries largely from poor fermentation conditions. Its symptoms includes blindness/blurred vision, convulsion, dizziness, seizure, coma and possibly death.
The case of methanol poisoning in Nigeria - if established - and the reactions that trailed it would be unique, so unique because of the ignorance of the affected community. Unfortunately, this isn't the first of a national "show of ignorance", it happened first with the Ebola. Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic when calls went round the country asking people to take pre-dawn bath with salty water as was instructed by a king said to have supernatural powers and regularly with the gods. Many Nigerians performed the as was instructed, but it later became clear that salt water was
no means to control the disease rather by a systematic and orthodox approaches backed by established fact could curtail the spread of the disease.
In the end, the lessons for all of us is that, mass literacy and education requires urgent attention and most importantly, the intellectual use of our brains rather than submitting to our ignorance. Ignorance is a disease.
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