The entire circumstance of the people of West Africa is dire. There is simply no quality of life, they have been abandoned to profound poverty with no escaping it.
Recently, the presence of malaria has increased and now out numbers the cases of Ebola. The global community must address areas of permanent poverty and the dangers that await them and the rest of the world. The communities within these lands have been ignored far too long.
December 30, 2014
By David Quamman
The Ebola epidemic of 2014, which has now totaled almost 20,000 cases and at least 7,708 deaths, began quietly in southeastern Guinea slightly more than a year ago. News of the outbreak reached the wider world last March, and within weeks Leendertz assembled a multidisciplinary team that included ecologists and veterinarians, plus an anthropologist to interview local people, and traveled to the affected area, near the borders of Liberia and Ivory Coast.
Surveying wildlife in forests there, the scientists found no evidence of a die-off among larger animals, such as duikers, monkeys, and chimpanzees, that are also susceptible to Ebola. This suggested that perhaps the virus had spilled over directly from its reservoir host into humans, without passing through other animals hunted or scavenged for food....
How impoverished are these people? They use bat meat in their diets. In the past it has been the ingestion of these bats that have caused the outbreak. The past is the past and the isolation of the virus is no longer a practice to protect the world. The fact remains these people are the victim to fear and lack of resources to combat the virus. These people need a great deal of help in removing the living conditions they have come to know.
The journal currently publishing the article identifying the bat responsible for this more virulent strain of virus has strong proof of the extent to which these viruses can destroy human life.
Article first published online: 26 MAR 2009
...the discovery of the filoviruses, (click here) Marburg virus (MARV) and Ebola virus (EBOV) in 1967 and 1976 respectively, refuelled the fear that viruses of this family Filoviridae could, similar to smallpox virus, sweep around the globe in a matter of weeks, and kill millions of people. That fear provided the incentive for several countries to establish an infrastructure for studies aiming at the development of intervention strategies for such highly pathogenic (category 4) microorganisms. However, rather than witnessing such a pandemic filovirus outbreak, the world was instead confronted in the early 1980s with the more insidious pandemic viral outbreak of AIDS, caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although AIDS was identified only two and a half decades ago, the HIV pandemic belongs to the most devastating plagues in human history. Nevertheless, the high fatality rate of filovirus infections, the potential of filoviruses as bioterrorist agents and the high media attention for outbreaks caused by viruses of this family, have further increased the fear for outbreaks caused by these viruses. Furthermore, the increasing number of newly emerging and re-emerging virus infections in humans and animals in the past decades, as well as the general perception that the global capacity and infrastructure to adequately respond to such threats are insufficient, had had a negative impact on public confidence in our overall preparedness to combat such challenges. Obviously, the most important question in this regard is whether filoviruses do indeed pose a global threat and whether they may be the cause of future pandemics.
It is in the best interest of every country on Earth to improve the quality of life of the people of West Africa. There should be no delay.
How impoverished are these people? They use bat meat in their diets. In the past it has been the ingestion of these bats that have caused the outbreak. The past is the past and the isolation of the virus is no longer a practice to protect the world. The fact remains these people are the victim to fear and lack of resources to combat the virus. These people need a great deal of help in removing the living conditions they have come to know.The journal currently publishing the article identifying the bat responsible for this more virulent strain of virus has strong proof of the extent to which these viruses can destroy human life.
EMBO Molecular Medicine
Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 10–18, April 2009
...the discovery of the filoviruses, (click here) Marburg virus (MARV) and Ebola virus (EBOV) in 1967 and 1976 respectively, refuelled the fear that viruses of this family Filoviridae could, similar to smallpox virus, sweep around the globe in a matter of weeks, and kill millions of people. That fear provided the incentive for several countries to establish an infrastructure for studies aiming at the development of intervention strategies for such highly pathogenic (category 4) microorganisms. However, rather than witnessing such a pandemic filovirus outbreak, the world was instead confronted in the early 1980s with the more insidious pandemic viral outbreak of AIDS, caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although AIDS was identified only two and a half decades ago, the HIV pandemic belongs to the most devastating plagues in human history. Nevertheless, the high fatality rate of filovirus infections, the potential of filoviruses as bioterrorist agents and the high media attention for outbreaks caused by viruses of this family, have further increased the fear for outbreaks caused by these viruses. Furthermore, the increasing number of newly emerging and re-emerging virus infections in humans and animals in the past decades, as well as the general perception that the global capacity and infrastructure to adequately respond to such threats are insufficient, had had a negative impact on public confidence in our overall preparedness to combat such challenges. Obviously, the most important question in this regard is whether filoviruses do indeed pose a global threat and whether they may be the cause of future pandemics.
It is in the best interest of every country on Earth to improve the quality of life of the people of West Africa. There should be no delay.
