In a letter from African Football Confederation (CAF) secretary general El Amrani, an unknown number of national associations were asked if they would be prepared to be hosts for the event.
According to Sport24, a senior football official revealed that South Africa and Ghana were amongst those who received the letter.
But online users and other commentators have expressed concern about holding the event in South Africa because of the Ebola crisis.
Ebola has already killed 4,500 people this year. Most of the deaths have been focused in West African countries Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
The public's concerns are valid, particularly when we look at what has happened in the US regarding its own Ebola diagnoses.
In the West, officials are scurrying about after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US has been exposed in at least two major missteps in the treatment of Ebola: the first is the fact that it allowed the second nurse to contract Ebola in the country, Amber Vinson, to get onto a plane filled with people despite her rising temperature; the second is footage that shows a single man without protective gear surrounded by people wearing protective suits as they transported Vinson from an ambulance to a jet in Dallas.
These missteps have not only exposed flaws in the first world health system, but assisted in spreading panic across the world.
While Dulles International Airport became the fifth US airport to screen passengers for symptoms of Ebola, US President Barack Obama is desperately trying to hold travel bans at bay - bans more and more Westerners are calling for as the outbreak worsens in West Africa. This comes as Americans appear to be losing faith in the US' ability to stave off a possible outbreak.
As panic spreads, more and more scares are being reported.
A college building in California was isolated on Thursday after a student told a teacher she had been to the mid-west of the country and her sister was suffering from flu-like symptoms. The rumour was that she and her family were on board the same plane that carried Vinsom - these claims were proved to be false, but the fear is spreading.
An Air France passenger allegedly showing Ebola symptoms was rushed to a hospital in Spain on Thursday. He had recently travelled to Lagos in Nigeria, a West African country only slightly affected by Ebola according to reports. Passengers of the flight who had been in direct contact or sitting close to the sick passenger were marked for monitoring.
There was another scare in Connecticut, US, when a grad student who had recently travelled to Liberia showed a symptom of Ebola. The student was hospitalised at Yale-New Haven Hospital on Wednesday night, and though tests in Boston came out negative, the CDc is testing the sample again as a precaution.
A male passenger on a flight from Nigeria landed at JFK Airport on Thursday had died after a fit of vomiting. CDC officials who examined the corpse cleared it of Ebola, but the incident sparked a controversy because, not only did CDC officials allegedly only conduct a cursory examination, but the door to the terminal remained open. There have been no reports on what the man actually did die of.
On Friday, there were also reports that a cruise ship anchored off Belize City has been refused entry to the city because a patient on the ship exhibiting Ebola symptoms was confirmed to be a nurse who worked at a Dallas hospital, who was travelling with her husband. Belizean authorities have been slated for denying the patients entry into Belize.
Paranoia on the ground and at the borders is also becoming a problem. A Dallas\Fort Worth International Airport contractor wore a mask and gloves to work on Wednesday as a precaution, but his supervisor allegedly told him to remove them because it would create a panic amongst the airport's patrons. Pablo Medina is concerned because Vinson had passed through an exit he worked at.
The US government has been desperately attempting to stave off the panic by showing that Ebola is not contracted easily, regularly publishing public service announcements to the effect that only bodily fluids can transfer the virus.
This same fear has run rampant in West Africa as the outbreak spreads, and is only compounded in the West because of television and media services.
On a lighter note, if that is possible, a costume company is in the center of anger after it started to sell a Hazmat costume for Halloween.
According to a worker at one store, the suit was really inspired by the television series 'Breaking Bad', but might now become popular. Some shoppers say many people just want to have fun during Halloween, while others say the costume is insulting to those who have died and have lost loved ones because of the disease.
No comments:
Post a Comment