By Umaru Fofana and Clair Macdougall
...Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (click here) announced emergency measures late on Wednesday that will, for 90 days, allow her government to curtail civil rights by imposing quarantines on badly affected communities to contain an epidemic that has struck four West African nations.
In Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) experts were due to hold a second day of meetings to discuss emergency measures to tackle the outbreak and whether to classify it as an international public health emergency.
Though the vast majority of cases are in the remote border area of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, concern over Ebola's spread grew last month when a U.S. citizen died in Nigeria of the virus after arriving from the region. A nurse who treated him has now also died in Lagos, and at least five other people have been isolated with symptoms....
The virus is highly contagious and takes very few microbes to begin an infection. If a few microbes are accidentally deposited on one's eye lids it can begin an infection.
One of the problems with the spread of the disease in West Africa is the disbelief of the people. There are 24 hour radio broadcasts and workers driving around the city with announcements on loud speakers. But, not everyone has contact with a radio and may not live along the streets where workers drive to make announcements. This is the problem with poverty. This is why the USA spends monies abroad to assist in the health of nations.
While Ebola is a microbe and contagious the real enemy is poverty and allowing people to live without the benefit of education and the opportunity to change their quality of life. In the case with the method above the problem exists when others can't read the words on the shirt. While compassion seems like a nice thing for the USA to do for others there are profoundly important reasons why that compassion occurs. It is important for every nation of people to have the opportunity to improve their quality of life and understand the complexities of their world.
The compassion provided for others by wealthier nations has to be nondiscriminatory and void of religious priorities. Why? Because we have learned when religious organizations provide free care to others disease isn't necessarily defeated as in HIV/AIDS and the proven practice of using condoms. The prejudice of religious dogma supplied to people in other nations caused the spread of the disease. In the USA people practice their religion but are sophisticated enough to know prayers alone won't stop microbes. That is the level of sophistication that needs to be supplied to any aid.
