The arrival of the deadly Ebola virus in the United States via a Liberian visitor has sent tremors of shock, consternation and anger among Americans especially in this city of 1.3 million people, where the victim - middle-aged Thomas Eric Duncan - is struggling for his life at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Since the announcement last week that Duncan had tested positive for the killer virus, American television and radio news channels have been carrying the story intermittently, twenty-four-seven, via breaking news segments, analyses, speculations and expert opinion from US government agencies, more specifically, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the premier epidemic disease watchdog organisation.
Americans are shocked because most people here believed Ebola was an African problem. Never did they imagine it could cross oceans and reach North America.
In West Africa, the epicentre of the disease, thousands of Africans in half a dozen countries have died from the epidemic that is threatening to enshroud more countries and kill many more people.
A few weeks ago, two American medics working in West Africa had to be evacuated to the US after contracting the disease and were lucky enough to survive, thanks to an experimental drug that is still on trial in American laboratories.
There is consternation because several people in Dallas came into close contact with Duncan including children in four schools. Then there are those who travelled with him on the flights from Monrovia to Brussels and Brussels to Dallas; airline personnel; hospital workers; and residents at the Dallas housing complex where Duncan stayed.
From on-air analyses, it is easy to discern an amount of anger among some Americans, not only directed at Duncan, but his hosts in the US and Africans in general. There is a feeling among some, expressed subtly and not so subtly, that Africans are to blame for the irruption of the disease in the US.
I can now understand why my pew mates in Church, an elderly couple, refused to extend their hands for the peace sign last Sunday.
With the arrival of Ebola in the western world, this still-to-be-fully-understood disease, is no longer an African problem but a global emergency that requires combined efforts by all humanity. President Obama is already leading the way and is sending troops to help construct hospitals in West Africa for victims of the fast spreading disease.
It's now time for other countries to come forward and show their benevolence and solidarity with Africa at this difficult moment. In the meantime, Africans should not be blamed en-masse for the entry of Ebola - a disease said to be transmitted through consumption of monkey flesh - into the Western world.
If there is one thing this sad episode has taught us, it is that ours is a global village. What happens in Africa affects everyone in this planet and vice versa.
And that is my say.
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