Ebolavirus 2014 Outbreak
May 5, 2015
Update #6
Paul Herscu, ND, DHANP, MPH
Herscu Laboratory
VERY NEARLY THERE
Well, it is my birthday today and I decided
to treat myself to the birthday gift of writing this update. I am going to keep
this short. Back in September, and again in October I wrote that by May 2015 we
are going to have Ebola free countries in West Africa, assuming that there are
no major cuts in funding. Elsewhere, in webinars on epidemics, I highlighted
the different treatment protocols in the different countries, and that all
things being equal some countries are going to fare better than other countries.
The bottom line though was that by the start of 2015 the disease would become
localized and that with all resources effectively brought to bear, Guinea
should be clear except for some localized areas and Liberia would be Ebola free
sometime in May. Well, if my math is right, by
the end of the week, Liberia will be announced as being Ebola free,
crossing our fingers still. This leaves two countries with local outbreaks.
And to repeat my points from last October, sadly,
it is likely that by now almost no one cares about EBV, that our minds move on
to other pressing matters, such as the tragedy is Nepal.
I guess some of the points I made throughout
these posts remain valid. The only reason EBV is not in the USA and in Europe
has little to do with medical care per se, and all to do with great public
health policies, set up late, yes, but set up and funded and staffed,
eventually. While I congratulate all in the success of bringing this epidemic
to a concluding moment, I still feel saddened by the underlying problems.
Health care systems in many areas of Africa are still poorly funded by the
world, poorly staffed, with poor public health education. To be clear, mostly
they don’t need more ideas or some ‘smart’ people to fix a problem. The solution
is not new science per se, but funding. They need money to implement good,
known, logical public policies.
In this respect, I would like to say that
the EBV epidemic while ending now could have ended a great deal sooner with
appropriate funding. In fact, after my last update, funding dropped and bases
began to close. Colleagues who were preparing to go abroad had their trips
canceled since the whole medical clinic they were visiting was closing. In
other words, people wanting to go help were refused because the objective was
solely focused on EBV, and not on fixing underlying problems in the
infrastructure.
Towards that end, we still have the Cholera
problem in Haiti. And to a certain extent the Nepal problem is the EBV problem,
as is the plague problem in Madagascar, etc. What we know now, and what we have
known for centuries, is good public health measures overall often outweigh the
implementation of any one specific medical treatment at a given time. Funding
to correct underlying deficits in infrastructure can only help countries become
more resilient in any medical emergency.
As I closed the prior EBV update, let’s use this horrible time as a
springboard to bring the system into the 21st century. It is for the
common good!
In health,
Paul Herscu, ND, DHANP, MPH
