However, the Founder of the Christian Action Faith Ministries, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-William says if Ghanaians commit themselves to God and prayer, an Ebola outbreak can be averted.
He said while the church would pray against what he described as “evil Ebola virus”, it was important for the security services to do their job to prevent the epidemic from spreading to Ghana.
The research, conducted by the Northeastern University, USA, says countries with the largest probability of seeing the arrival of Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) cases before the end of October 2014 are Ghana, the United States, France, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.
The report was compiled before Senegal, Nigeria and the United States recorded any case and was published on October 6, 2014.
Other countries
Other countries stated in the report are the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Belgium, Mali, The Gambia, Morocco, South Africa, Kenya, Lebanon and Germany.
According to the report, the short-term projection for the international spread of the EVD showed a small probability for countries outside Africa, with the exception of a few European countries.
It said the probability of international spread would have increased, particularly in Europe and the Americas, if the Nigerian outbreak had not been contained.
Concerns in Ghana
Although no official comment could be obtained, people on the streets have expressed concerns about the chances of Ghana experiencing an outbreak soon.
According to them, with Ghana being used as the hub for the transportation of Ebola equipment to the affected countries, the country had a slim chance of avoiding the disease.
The Head of the United Nations (UN) Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Mr Anthony Banbury, had earlier given an assurance that the presence of the mission in Ghana would not put the country at risk.
According to him, the team was going to follow stringent and rigid measures that would be put in place by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) to check their travels from Ghana to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three countries affected by the Ebola disease.
But some people are still of the belief that air travels by the UNMEER team, coupled with Ghana being a transit point of flights from many West African countries, were going to increase the country’s vulnerability.
The Report
The report said the probability of case exportation was extremely modest for non-African countries, with the exception of the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and the United States.
The research said the probability of any country experiencing (EVD) case importation depended on the passenger flow from the areas affected by the outbreak, the case numbers and the duration of the incubation time.
It said to characterise and forecast the international spread, it was assumed that the growth rate of the epidemic in the affected regions was not going to change in the next two months.
Hope for the future
However, the report said the transmissibility might change as the epidemic progressed, saying that new containment measures would lower the local transmission with a decrease of observed cases.
“While this was the scenario we hope will occur in the future, if the containment measures are not successful, we may expect a deterioration of the health infrastructure capabilities in the EVD-affected areas,” it added.
That, it said, would likely lead to the increase in transmissibility and an acceleration of the epidemic.
It said the evolution of the epidemic was likely to deviate from the current behaviour in the next few weeks or months.
Archbishop Duncan-Williams, who spoke to the Daily Graphic to clarifying a message to his congregation last Sunday, said the church had declared a two-week fast for preventive prayers against the Ebola virus from coming into Ghana.
He had told the congregation that the “demonic” Ebola virus had Ghana on its radar as its next destination between October and November.
“I’ve declared another fast on Thursday because on Wednesday, I was resting and [at] 1 am, the Spirit of the Lord woke me up and He said: ‘Are you sleeping?’ And I said: ‘Yes, I’m sleeping’, and He said: ‘Wake up!”
“So I did and He said: ‘You have to go into prayer because the Ebola virus is looking for a door to enter your country between October and November’.
So I’m telling you, you can write it down. I don’t just say things. I put 38 years of credibility on the line. So if I don’t hear, I don’t talk. When I say it, you better believe it,” he was reported to have said.
Fasting against Ebola in Ghana
The Archbishop told the Daily Graphic that the Bible said “we should pray that we are not led into temptation and should be delivered from evil. We are in terrible times. The disease is killing people in isolated countries; we have to be prepared physically and spiritually. ”
He said the church had declared fast for preventive prayers against the Ebola virus which had so far killed more than 3,000 from entering Ghana.
Quoting Psalm 91:10, he said the Bible had stated that “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.”
“I’m enforcing scriptures that the Ebola virus will not cross into our borders or ome into this country by land, by sea, by air or through any means that presents danger to us.”
He said he was not a prophet of doom and that it was his duty to announce what he described as the enemy’s plan against the country.
“This would take a lot of alertness. We are praying for the security services to be highly vigilant, so that the disease does not spread to Ghana. It is like a bushfire, the moment it enters the country, unless we have the solution, there is no end to it. It is like there is no hope.”
Doom mongers
On his Sunday sermon, the Archbishop Duncan-Williams alleged that there were people who wanted to see the virus and wanted the country’s name on CNN.
“We cancel it by the blood of Jesus. That is not to say that we are better than those countries. We are not. But let’s also pray that the plague will cease in those countries…I believe in what I’ve seen and I believe in what I’ve heard and I stand by it…Spiritually.
“I tell you that the plague, whether it’s a conspiracy of white man, black man, I don’t care. I just know that this thing is demonic. Anything that kills people the way it’s killing people is demonic. I don’t care what is behind it, but I know something; when I lift up prayer, there has to be divine resolution to the matter. Because prayer knows no boundaries and prayer knows no limit…” he said.
He told the Daily Graphic that it was interesting that all the persons who contracted the disease outside Africa—the United States and Spain– survived but most Africans who contracted the disease died.
“We have to take care of ourselves, and all we have is God.”
He, therefore, urged Ghanaians to rise and pray for the nation at this crucial moment.
The Ebola statistic so far
Meanwhile, the United States Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reports that more than 8,000 people have contracted the disease worldwide, resulting in nearly 4,000 deaths.
The agency has predicted as many as 550,000 to 1.4 million Ebola infections by January.
But, according to a CNN report, there is a glimmer of hope if 70 per cent of the people with Ebola are properly treated; the CDC says the epidemic will dwindle and could eventually be eliminated.
The Ebola scare, which started some five months ago, first broke out in Guinea before spreading to Sierra Leone and Liberia with isolated cases in Senegal, the United States, Spain, Australia.
More than 100 suspected cases have been investigated in Ghana by the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research but have all proven negative.
By Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho and Seth Bokpe
(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)