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The Ebola outbreak has captured the attention of many large 
corporations within the ICT sector. Companies like MTN, SES, Liquid 
Telecom, Econet, IBM, Airtel, LG and Samsung have all responded to the 
outbreak in a meaningful and impactful way. 
 

While Ebola is becoming a top priority for ICT companies within Africa, the virus has unfortunately spread internationally. 
 

In order to tackle the epidemic, MTN recently invited over 219 
million customers across Africa and the Middle East to join hands with 
the company in a 3-month campaign, starting 1 December, to raise funds 
for a “United Against Ebola” initiative. 
 

According to MTN, it has committed US$ 10 million and is now inviting
 customers to participate in an SMS campaign to donate a minimum of US$ 
1. In addition to this, MTN has also collaborated with African-based 
musicians in order to produce an inspirational song, which will feature 
on the MTN Play Store. According to MTN, all proceeds from sales, post 
publishing rights and subscription payments, will be donated to the AU 
campaign. MTN has been an integral part of efforts to tackle the spread 
of Ebola in countries where the company operates, with special emphasis 
on Guinea-Conakry and Liberia. 
 

SES has also joined in the fight against Ebola. SES has gone ahead 
and launched an Ebola-focused education channel to be broadcast via 
satellite in West Africa. According to SES, the channel, called “Fight 
Ebola”, will be transmitted from the ASTRA 2F satellite at 28.2 degrees 
East and from SES-5 at 5 degrees East. The project aims at informing 
populations in affected areas about the nature and dangers of the 
disease and how to fight it. 
 

Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, Senior Vice President Commercial Africa at 
SES, stated that: “Through the channel we hope to further educate 
people. Many people do not understand this disease and therefore, 
tragically, do not seek the medical care they need.” 
 

Moving over to Liquid Telecom, in Rwanda, the company has donated USD
 250, 000 towards the prevention of Ebola. According to the company, the
 donation was handed over to Rwanda’s ministry of health. The donation 
is expected to supplement the government’s prevention plan. 

The funds will be used in strengthening capacity through medical, 
social prevention and mobilisation and awareness campaigns. Liquid 
Telecom Group CEO for East Africa Sam K. Nkusi said the donation is in 
the spirit of ensuring public safety. 
 

Moving over to Zimbabwe, Econet has set up an Ebola Response 
Taskforce. The company revealed that the taskforce is made up of doctors
 as well as specialists who will essentially report to a working party 
who are dealing with similar efforts in countries such as Zimbabwe, 
Rwanda, Lesotho, and Burundi. 
 

Econet official Douglas Mboweni stated that: “The Econet Wireless 
operation was directed by our founder Strive Masiyiwa in order to set up
 an Ebola Response Task Force to work with the authorities in the 
countries in which Econet operates.” 
 

“To fight Ebola, you have to go to the source, but you also have to 
prepare for potential outbreak in other countries. We, as a group, are 
involved in both efforts,” Moboweni concluded. 

Looking at the bigger picture of Ebola in West Africa is Airtel, IBM 
Research Africa and Kenya’s Echo Mobile. These companies have joined 
forces and created a variety of initiatives to tackle the deadly 
disease. 
 

These initiatives include: 

- A citizen engagement and analytics system in Sierra Leone that 
enables communities affected by Ebola to communicate their issues and 
concerns directly to the government; 

- A donation of IBM Connections technology in Nigeria to strengthen 
the Lagos State government’s preparedness for future disease outbreaks; 

- A global platform for sharing Ebola-related open data. 

These efforts combine expertise from IBM’s global network of research
 labs with the company’s years of experience in humanitarian disaster 
response by applying mobile technology, data analytics and cloud 
computing to help governments and relief agencies as they seek to 
contain the deadly disease. 
 

The work benefits from contributions from a number of partners 
including Sierra Leone’s Open Government Initiative, Cambridge 
University’s Africa’s Voices project, Airtel and Kenya’s Echo Mobile. 
 

IBM’s Africa research lab, in collaboration with Sierra Leone’s Open 
Government Initiative, have developed a system that enables citizens to 
report Ebola-related issues and concerns via SMS or voice calls. It 
provides actionable insight to the government about the day-to-day 
experiences of communities directly affected by Ebola to help improve 
its strategy for containing the disease. 

Samsung and LG have also stepped forward in order to tackle Ebola. 
Samsung Electronics revealed in October 2014 that it will be donating 
3000 smartphones, worth about USD 1 million (ZAR 10,9 million) to 
support the ongoing fight against Ebola. The smartphones donated by 
Samsung have gone through the United Nations Office for the Coordination
 of Human Affairs (OCHA), and will be used in the Humanitarian 
Connectivity Project, the UN’s IT project that utilises mobile devices 
to provide humanitarian support in disaster areas. 
 

From LG’s side, the company has donated 2000 smartphones to the 
United Nations, in order to help in the fight against the Ebola virus in
 West Africa. 
 

According to LG, the smartphones will be going to healthcare and 
other key personnel who have been dispatched to affected areas. LG also 
added that the smartphones will allow for communication between the 
teams on the ground, focusing on medical data gathering, monitoring and 
planning. 

According to The World Health Organisation (<a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/">WHO</a>),
 the Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal 
if untreated. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in 2 
simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, 
Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the 
Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name. 
 

The current outbreak in west Africa, (first cases notified in March 
2014), is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola 
virus was first discovered in 1976. There have been more cases and 
deaths in this outbreak than all others combined. It has also spread 
between countries starting in Guinea then spreading across land borders 
to Sierra Leone and Liberia, by air (1 traveller only) to Nigeria, and 
by land (1 traveller) to Senegal. 
 

The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and 
Liberia have very weak health systems, lacking human and infrastructural
 resources, having only recently emerged from long periods of conflict 
and instability. On August 8, the WHO Director-General declared this 
outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. 

A separate, unrelated Ebola outbreak began in Boende, Equateur, an isolated part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
 

The virus family Filoviridae includes 3 genera: Cuevavirus, 
Marburgvirus, and Ebolavirus. There are 5 species that have been 
identified: Zaire, Bundibugyo, Sudan, Reston and Taï Forest. The first 
3, Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, and Sudan ebolavirus have 
been associated with large outbreaks in Africa. The virus causing the 
2014 west African outbreak belongs to the Zaire species. 

Researchers are also looking to Nigeria for technology to suppress 
the Ebola threat. Following cases of the Ebola virus in Spain, 
researchers are looking to Nigeria’s utilisation of 21st Century 
technology to study exactly how Africa’s most populous country was able 
to contain the deadly disease. 
 

The Ebola outbreak hit Nigeria in July when Patrick Sawyer, a 
Liberian-American, flew into Lagos plagued by the virus, contagious and 
nearing his last days. The initial outbreak fueled health officials’ 
concern about the country’s ability to control the virus. After all, 
Lagos is Africa’s largest city and a major transportation hub. 
 

On August 8, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan declared a national 
emergency. In response, health officials distributed informational 
leaflets and posted billboards in multiple local languages to educate 
Nigerian citizens on preventive measures and virus symptoms. Health 
officials immediately understood their main priority was to track any 
individual that came into contact with the index case. Officials placed 
Sawyer in isolation and started tracking down every person he had 
recently come in contact with. 
 

All who came in contact with Sawyer – more than 280 residents – were 
required to provide Nigerian authorities with updates twice-a-day about 
their current health status. Individuals who displayed symptoms or 
failed to respond were checked on by a neighborhood network or health 
workers. In total, contact officials made more than 18,500 home visits 
to the potentially exposed. 

Through all of this, Nigeria focused on technology as a critical and 
proactive tool to help combat the spread of the virus. Health workers 
monitoring suspected cases armed themselves with mobile phones and an 
Android application that helped reduce reporting time, which can 
normally take up to 12 hours. The technology decreased reporting time to
 six hours before being reduced to almost nothing. 
 

The app and phones that made the real-time updates possible were 
provided by eHealth and Information Systems Nigeria, a Santa Ana, 
Calif.-based non-profit research company that operates in the northern 
Nigerian city of Kano. A group of volunteers partnered with the 
government and created Ebola Alert, which used Facebook and Twitter to 
educate Nigerians about the illness. Google Inc.’s Nigerian unit 
organised training sessions for journalists on how to use Google Trends 
to identify the top questions the public had about the disease. 
 

Laboratory technicians conducting tests were also given tablets to 
scan and upload results to the emergency center data base. In turn, 
field teams received text-message alerts on their phones informing them 
of the results immediately. 
 

After more than two months of closely monitoring the situation, 
Nigerian health officials were confident that the virus had been 
contained. The Nigerian government remains strongly committed to 
providing guidance and expertise to other countries that are battling 
the virus. 

According to WHO, it is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae 
family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human
 population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or 
other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, 
fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or
 in the rainforest. 
 

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct 
contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, 
secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with 
surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these 
fluids. 

Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating 
patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through 
close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not 
strictly practiced. 
 

Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body
 of the deceased person can also play a role in the transmission of 
Ebola. People remain infectious as long as their blood and body fluids 
contain the virus. 
 

Facebook’s internet.org app is also making an impact when it comes to
 containing the Ebola outbreak. Individuals who use the app can access 
critical information regarding the <a href="http://zm.ebola.unicore.io/">Ebola virus</a>
 for free. The app is currently available in most parts of Africa, 
including: Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The Ebola app has bee developed 
by the <a href="http://www.praekeltfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Praekelt Foundation</a> in South Africa on behalf of Unicef. 

  
 Source: itnewsafrica.com

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