Ebola should not have been a surprise. The steady expansion of human habitat brings people into contact with remote reservoirs of poorly understood diseases, and mobile populations allow pathogens to infect large numbers in a short time. The story of Ebola is the story of SARS, of MERS—and most of all, it is the story of HIV and its nearly 80 million victims, roughly half of whom have died. All are animal-borne viruses that crossed to humans; HIV and Ebola even come from the same region of Central Africa. But lessons are easily forgotten, it seems, in the face of feckless African governments and complacent Western powers, rival healers and turf-guarding bureaucrats. National and global health authorities would wait five months beyond March to acknowledge the unfolding disaster. Health ministries would ignore the warnings of doctors who were seeing the hot zone firsthand. WHO would initially rebuff efforts by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help. By the time the authorities woke up, the epidemic was galloping away from them.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 20:33:27 +0000
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