What is news one day is sometimes quickly forgotten. Today
there were three pieces of news regarding the Ebola crisis. First, Dr. Rick Sacra returned
to Liberia to fight the Ebola outbreak and contracted the Ebola virus but survived
after being returned to the United States for medical care. Second, President Obama announced that he was removing almost all of the troops that were
previously sent to fight the outbreak in Liberia. President Obama said the effort
was shifting from a military goal of containing the virus to a civilian led
effort of fighting the virus. It was unclear how he planned to do
this but of the 4,800 troop sent to fight the Ebola outbreak, all but 100 would
be out by the end of April. The third piece of news was that the WHO reported that
cases of Ebola had risen for the second straight week after previously falling.
About 9000 people have died from Ebola mostly in the west African countries of
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Many Americans were overcome with fear
last year as Ebola was in the news almost every day. Today, we rarely hear
about the Ebola crisis. It seems that Americans have a short attention span when it comes to
news like this. We are now focused on the current measles outbreak and the
issue of vaccinations yet the risk of Ebola has not gone away as it continues
to take a devastating toll on West African nations.
Questions
Are we providing enough resources to help
fight Ebola? Should other nations contribute more to the effort? Is this a case
where the United Nations should take the lead and require more nations to be
involved?
History is full of major outbreaks of a
variety of infectious diseases. Ebola raised the awareness of the risks but
people are quickly forgetting this. What can we do to prepare for the next
major epidemic that will confront us?
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