Indian health advisers have warned local prostitutes to refrain from rendering sex-services to all Africans as part of a campaign to keep the country free of the dreaded ebola virus disease (EVD).
Over the last few months, EVD has ravaged parts of West Africa and given how contagious it is, the virus spreads upon contact. In Liberia, 786 have been infected, out of which 413 have died, while in Sierra Leone, 810 people have been affected of which 348 have died and in Guinea being 519 have been infected out of which 380 have passed on.
On July 20, the virus was transported to Nigeria after American-Liberian Patrick Sawyer to attend an ECOWAS summit and infected hospital staff he came in contact with. Since then, to curtail the spread, Cameroon has closed its borders to Nigeria and suspended all flights between both nations and international airlines have made it optional for their staff to travel to West Africa or not.
Taking a cue from this, Indian health officials have urged sex workers in Sonagachi to refrain from rendering services to all Africans clients from henceforth. At a forum of 130,000 sex workers in West Bengal, Indian charity the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), warned them of the danger in having close contact with those infected with ebola.
A DMSC spokeswoman said:“We have requested the sex workers not to entertain Africans as it can be a life risk for them if they get infected by the highly contagious ebola virus causing havoc in some West African countries.”
Translated to mean Unstoppable Women’s Synthesis Committee, DMSC is a collective of 65,000 sex workers in West Bengal with an estimated membership of 11,000.
In a similar vein, the Association of Nigerian Prostitutes has also advised its members to be wary of the customers they take on.
(via Nigerian Watch)
