Ignorance and Racial Prejudice Fuel Irrational Ebola Response

  The world is currently facing a dangerous health crises because of an outbreak of the disease Ebola. Without good, modern health care, Ebola has about a 50% death rate.  With current modern health care, the death rate is about 10 to 20 %, still pretty bad.  New treatments in the process of being developed will probably offer better survival rates.  Ebola is not extremely contagious, unlike Flu or the plague.

   Ebola could potentially mutate into a more contagious form, the way that Bubonic Plague can mutate into Pneumonic Plague, and it is essential that the disease be contained and eliminated in Africa.  Unfortunately, panic and ignorance coupled with racial prejudice is threatening the efforts to contain it. Here in America several states have instituted quarantines against returning health care providers, thereby threatening to reduce the ability to recruit health-care workers to stop the disease where it can be stopped. These unwarranted quarantines are based on ignorance and racial prejudice. Ebola is only contagious when a person actually has the disease and is showing symptoms.

   The governor of Florida (a man for whom who I personally have no respect ) has said that returning health care providers in Florida will be subject to twice daily monitoring, a reasonable restriction.  In fact, this is what the returning health workers have self-imposed, and what anyone who may have been exposed to Ebola should do.  In America, patients who begin treatment as soon as they show symptoms have a pretty good survival rate. Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian who developed Ebola after returning to the U.S. and did not receive prompt care, is the only U.S. patient who has died.  Prompt care of other U.S. patients has resulted in a high survival rate.

   I also am happy to see that the U.S. has shown particular interest in helping Liberia, a de facto U.S. colony in Africa founded by former slaves and for so long ignored. The U.S. has a moral obligation to give Liberia a special status due to the historic connection to America.