Mereja.Forum

IGAD Raises Alarm Over Marburg Spread Risk


Mike Hutchings/Reuters

ETHIOPIA — IGAD has warned that the Marburg virus outbreak in Ethiopia could spill into neighboring member states, especially Kenya and South Sudan, due to their proximity to the epicenter region of Jinka, South Omo Zone, where the virus was first detected on November 12.

Member states have issued alerts and stepped up preparedness.

Kenya activated county emergency centers and circulated nationwide advisories. Uganda boosted surveillance at border points and deployed public health teams. Sudan began screening and awareness efforts at airports and informal crossings. Djibouti, which chairs IGAD, called for stronger cross-border surveillance and better laboratory capacity given the high movement of people between the two countries.

ETHIOPIA — According to a report by Meseret Media, the ruling Prosperity Party (PP) of Ethiopia has organized a digital social media army of over 200,000 cadres.

This network is allegedly used to promote pro-government narratives, report and suppress dissenting voices on platforms like X and Facebook, and amplify regime-aligned content.

The group is led allegedly by a figure named Dr. Solomon Kassa, with members provided laptops, unlimited internet, and daily allowances from government funds.

This structure operates from regional offices down to the woreda level, focusing on coordinated commenting, sharing, and reporting to dominate online discourse.

Now the big question is:

Why do these large, coordinated online campaigns fail to shape the PP narrative when compared with the smaller, tight-knit network of motivated Eritrean volunteers?

The answer is simple: it's quality, not quantity, that delivers.

Despite their sheer size, these campaigns often rely on "inauthentic behavior", as reported recently by the BBC, and that makes them easy to be flagged and dismissed as bots or trolls, which can even trigger shadowbans.

For instance recent efforts of accusing Eritrea of "preparing massive attacks", using a repititive, copy-paste messaging (e.g., ambassadors recycling the same messages verbatim) drew more ridicule than traction ...