This makes the conversation of panic circulating around America most ironic at a distance. From an airport lounge in Abuja, my attention was briefly occupied by CNN's fearful account of "Ebola in America," where Wolf Blitzer talked about hospital missteps in Dallas that could get another few infected. This follows an influx of social media accounts full of baseless arguments - doomsday scenarios that Ebola will go airborne and kill us all, despite the fact heart disease is much more likely to bring about our early death given the bad food my country continues to put in their mouths knowingly. I think there is a romantic association with Ebola, one of certain death and gruesome last moments - the epitome of a mysterious disease out of African jungles - and the 24 hour a day news culture of the United States always requires content. The fact is, Malaria does and will do more damage 1000 times over to this continent each year, but no one stays awake at night fretting about mosquitoes. Liberia and Sierra Leone are African tragedies that pose more a threat to American conscious than they do to American lives.
Being the only American passport in the room, I looked around curiously at Nigerians also watching the news. I am not sure what they were thinking. It's been a long few months, and this country has a lot on its plate, but I imagine to some extent there was a sense of amusement at what exactly Americans - with their nice hospitals and emergency response systems and qualified doctors - consider scary in a world full of unpredictable and improbable events. The things that should command our attention rarely do.
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