World woefully under supporting Ebola response

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World, you still just don’t get it. The Ebola epidemic that is raging across West Africa, killing more than half its victims, will not be conquered with principles of global solidarity and earnest appeals. It will not be stopped with dribbling funds, dozens of volunteer health workers, and barriers across national borders. And the current laboratory-confirmed tolls (3,944 cases, with 2,097 deaths) will soon rise exponentially.

To understand the scale of response the world must mount in order to stop Ebola’s march across Africa (and perhaps other continents), the world community needs to immediately consider the humanitarian efforts following the 2004 tsunami and its devastation of Aceh, Indonesia.

The U.S. and Singaporean militaries launched their largest rescue missions in history: The United States alone put 12,600 military personnel to a rescue and recovery mission, including the deployment of nearly the entire Pacific fleet, 48 helicopters, and every Navy hospital ship in the region. The World Bank estimated that some $5 billion in direct aid was poured into the countries hard hit by the tsunami, and millions more were raised from private donors all over the world. And when the dust settled and reconstruction commenced, the affected countries still cried out for more.

In contrast, the soaring Ebola epidemic garnered only a negligible international response from its recognition in March until early July. The outbreak originated in the tropical rain forest of Guinea in December 2013, but local health authorities did not recognize the new disease in humans in the country until four months later..

. During that time the outbreaks were largely rural, confined to easily isolated communities, and could have been stopped with inexpensive, low-technology approaches.

As I wrote last month, the world simply didn’t get it. And it still doesn’t. The WHO doesn’t have a giant SWAT team of disease-fighting soldiers ready to swoop into a beleaguered area on an agency-owned transport jet, armed with lifesaving drugs and vaccines.

In reality, the WHO begs airlines for tickets in coach, pleads with drug companies and protective gear manufacturers for free handouts, and has only the expertise on hand that governments are prepared to payroll and donate, such as scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

And now the epidemic is skyrocketing — nearly half of the cumulative case burden of Ebola in the three countries has occurred in just the last 21 days, according to the WHO. This week CDC Director Tom Frieden returned from Liberia visibly stunned, flabbergasted by what he had witnessed, warning that “There is a window of opportunity to tamp this down, but that window is closing.”

Read the full, original story: We Could Have Stopped This

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