Ebola is a scary disease. The latest outbreak is sad and terrifying and tragic. Thats absolutely real. And people should be paying attention. But I think its important to keep this in perspective and remember, also, that diarrhea has killed more children in the last 12 hours than Ebola has since the start of this outbreak in March. The level of uncertainty and fear and helplessness that many of us in the West have when we contemplate Ebola is the way many people in developing countries live their day-to-day life in the context of infectious disease and inadequate health care systems. HIV, malaria, TB, and childbirth kill many, many more and are symptoms of the same broken health systems as the Ebola outbreak, but are far less exciting news stories. Many of the same organizations working to contain this Ebola outbreak do wonderful work to try to strenghten health systems to prevent these types of outbreaks and attend to the numerous other health-related challenges people in developing countries face. Consider supporting them (and international development more broadly): msf.org/, savethechildren.org/.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 21:58:09 +0000
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