The American public is taking its customary self centered approach in dealing with the threat of the ebola epidemic. The people demanding travel bans and quarantines for returning health care workers are laboring under the illusion that American exceptionalism will give us a pass on disease if we just roll up the draw bridge and leave the rest of the world to its own devices. The reality is that a major epidemic cannot be confined to a particular corner of this globalized world and just ignored. The medical reports coming from West Africa clearly indicate that the tide has not been turned in controlling the epidemic. If the situation continues to escalate, the disease will spread to other parts of the world. There is far more travel between West Africa and Europe than there is with the US. If the disease were to become established there, then travelers to and from Europe who had never been to Africa could be bringing it to the US in increasing numbers. Controlling the situation in Africa is the only real solution.
Response to Ebola epidemic in west Africa too slow, say scientists Research in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal suggests current efforts will not bring the outbreak under control
The international response to the Ebola epidemic in west Africa is too slow and providing too few beds for the sick to stop the soaring number of cases and deaths, scientists say.
A paper in the Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal models the response in Montserrado, Liberia, against the spread of the virus and warns that current efforts will not bring the outbreak under control.
“Our predictions highlight the rapidly closing window of opportunity for controlling the outbreak, and averting a catastrophic toll of new Ebola cases and deaths in the coming months,” warns Alison Galvani, senior author and professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health.
The US military mission to Liberia is just getting underway. So far there are under a 1000 boots on the ground. Their eventual goal is the construction of 17 treatment facilities with 100 beds each. Medical specialist are warning that at the present rates of infection this will be little more than a drop in the bucket. The WHO says that over 10K cases have been reported. They warn that the actual number is probably higher because families are reluctant to take sick people to the existing treatment facilities.
US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power is being dispatched on a mission to West Africa. She is expected to review the situation and report to both the president and the UN Security Council.
So far Europe has had only one case of ebola diagnosed in Spain. The level of public anxiety there hasn't been as high as it is in the US and it doesn't appear to have become as much of a political football as it has here. It seems pretty clear that a much more coordinated and vigorous international response is going to be required to bring the situation under control.
There is certainly a need for the US and other nations to worry about ebola. The question is where should that concern be focused. There is much concern being expressed by the medical community that the move to quarantine returning health care workers regardless of their personal health status will be counter productive in fighting the epidemic. Medical professionals who are already taking a month or more out of their busy lives to volunteer in Africa are likely to see an additional three weeks of isolation as an unreasonable demand and decide to ship the whole thing. The people who seem to think that locking up a few doctors and nurses is going to provide ultimate protection from the problem are seriously out of touch with reality.