Without More International Aid, We Won’t Be Able To Stop Ebola
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 27th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Without More International Aid, We Won’t Be Able To Stop Ebola
Individual contributions to combat Ebola have lagged behind natural disaster relief efforts in years past.
The post Without More International Aid, We Won’t Be Able To Stop Ebola appeared first on ThinkProgress.
President Barack Obama speaks to the media about the government?s Ebola response, in the Oval Office of the White House.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Ebola cases could reach more than 170,000 by mid-December if developed nations don’t provide more international aid, a team of Yale researchers recently predicted.
Researchers reached that ominous conclusion after tracking the spread of the virus in Montserrado County — a highly populous region of Liberia that includes Monrovia, its capital city — and using a special mathematical equation to measure its future impact.
Experts say that financial assistance could increase the supply of Ebola treatment center beds and tools that aid in the rapid identification of new cases and bring forth the wider distribution of protective kits to households of those infected by the virus.
These findings, published in a recent issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, could galvanize efforts by world leaders and global health organizations to bridge a medical personnel and supply gap in West Africa that has thwarted efforts to stunt Ebola.
“Our predictions highlight the rapidly closing window of opportunity for controlling the outbreak and averting a catastrophic toll of new Ebola cases and deaths in the coming months,” study senior author Alison Galvani, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said in a university news release.
Galvani added: “Although we might still be within the midst of what will ultimately be viewed as the early phase of the current outbreak, the possibility of averting calamitous repercussions from an initially delayed and insufficient response is quickly eroding.”
In September, World Health Organization (WHO) Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward announced that battling the Ebola epidemic would cost $1 billion for the construction of treatment centers, strengthening of laboratory testing, tracing the spread of the virus, safe burials, and monitoring for reports of suspected cases around the world.
Raising those funds, however, has proven to be a huge undertaking. Individual contributions to combat Ebola have lagged behind natural disaster relief efforts in years past; so far, four major U.S. aid organizations have raised $19.5 million, a far cry from the $1.3 billion they raised in the months after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Since the beginning of the outbreak, Doctors Without Borders has only received more than $31 million in private donations, more than $7 million of which came from the United States.
Some experts say that’s because the impact of an “invisible” disease has been hard to convey to the public. But others blame the WHO and other global health groups for failing to make an appeal to the world in a manner they think would have solicited more donations. This week, a Doctors Without Borders representative suggested that fundraising didn’t increase until September, when the United States experienced its first domestic infection.
Subsequent cases — the most recent of which involved a doctor in New York who recently traveled to West Africa — have led to lots of policies intended to to keep Americans safe, including the establishment of 21-day quarantine stations in New York and New Jersey, which are points of entry for foreign travelers. But a host medical professionals, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, say that fighting Ebola at the epicenter in West Africa would actually be the best way to contain the outbreak.
In August, the White House pledged 17 new treatment centers with 1700 beds and 3,000 military personnel, efforts that will cost up toward $750 million in the next six months. Experts said that may not suffice, especially since Liberia still has less than a quarter of the nearly 3,000 beds needed, but administration officials thought that the U.S.’ actions would compel other foreign governments to act.
More than a month later, however, many countries have been slow to answer the call to action. In August, increasing health risks compelled officials in the Philippines to pull nearly 3,500 health workers out of West Africa. China, which hopes to expand its influence in Africa, has also fell short on its $34 million pledge, contributing $8 million thus far.
The European nations haven’t done much better. While the United Kingdom pledged more than $190 million to support Sierra Leone’s efforts to combat Ebola, it has doled out nearly one-tenth of that amount so far. France has contributed no more than $7.4 million to the main U.N. fund. Italy has only followed through on a quarter of its $2 million pledge. Spain has also contributed less than $600,000 thus far.
In recent weeks, President Obama has reached out to world leaders, telling them that their contributions would best help stop the spread of the disease at its source. He also sent U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power to Guinea to analyze the situation on the ground and assess what additional supplies are needed.
“There are a number of countries that have capacity that have not yet stepped up,” Obama recently told the Associated Press. “Those that have stepped up, all of us are going to have to do more, because unless we contain this at the source, this is going to continue to pose a threat to individual countries at a time when there’s no place that’s more than a couple of air flights away. And the transmission of this disease obviously directly threats all our populations.”
There’s still a glimmer of hope. Members of the European Union have followed Obama’s lead, increasing efforts to raise more than $1 billion last week. Cuba has followed through on a pledge to train and send doctors, nurses, and disease specialists to infected areas in West Africa. The Japanese government also announced that it would provide access to an anti-influenza drug currently under development. Canada has also pledged more than $58 million, shipped an experimental Ebola vaccine to WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, and deployed two diagnostic laboratories in Sierra Leone.
The post Without More International Aid, We Won’t Be Able To Stop Ebola appeared first on ThinkProgress.
