The threat of Ebola warrants a global effort

The international community has failed to respond adequately to the scale of the threat posed by the Ebola virus.

Health care workers wearing full body suits burn infected items at a hospital in Monrovia. Photo: Dominique Faget / AFP

The Ebola outbreak in west Africa continues to outstrip all efforts to contain it, despite the virus being initially dismissed as an African problem. With the death toll certain to rise beyond 2,000, it is on the verge of becoming the "threat to all humanity" about which Gayle Smith, special assistant to president Barack Obama, had previously warned.

The question of how best to respond to the outbreak was under consideration at the World Health Organisation (WHO) conference held in Switzerland yesterday. The meeting took place amid a background of warnings, principally from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), that the global response so far has been “lethally inadequate” and that only a major intervention would stop Ebola’s spread.

As with any major problem, there are a range of options that can be pursued. The trenchant criticism by Dr Joanne Liu, the international president of MSF, of what has been done so far stems in part from the failure for some relatively basic initiatives to be adopted.

As The National reported yesterday, one simple option is to provide adequate supplies of protective equipment to health workers on the front line of the crisis in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal. Doctors and nurses have been especially vulnerable to contracting Ebola. The US is now “ramping up significantly” its donation of protective equipment.

Another is funding the fight. The WHO estimates that at least $600 million (Dh2,204m) is needed, but the countries where the disease has taken hold are among the poorest in the world.

MSF also advocated the immediate deployment of military and civilian teams trained in biological disasters. It also sought more field hospitals with isolation wards, more health care workers trained in virus-control and aircraft to transport patients and medical staff across the region.

The death rate for those who contracted Ebola was initially described as up to 95 per cent but most of the western health workers who were medevaced after becoming infected have recovered, suggesting that the deadliest aspect of the virus was the quality of medical care on offer in the countries where it has become entrenched.

Controlling Ebola’s spread is not just the right thing to do morally, but it is in the international community’s interests as well.