Scoring Strikes In Ebola-Ing

With all of this talk of Ebola, I’m sure everyone is ready to head for the hills, become hermits and lock themselves away. I mean this new, deadly disease is taking over, right? We’re all going to catch it and surely perish, correct? This seems to be the general consensus, especially with the media creating such a hullabaloo. However, the case is that people actually have a higher chance of catching HIV or even the common cold.

Ebola has an incubation period normally ranging from 8 – 10 days. However, with any disease there are exceptions. Sometimes it can incubate in as little as 2 days, or it can take as long as 21. For all of you who aren’t virologists, (like me), incubation is basically the “birthing” period of the virus. While in incubation, it’s completely innocuous - which means you’re safe people. Only after people start showing symptoms is it contagious, and even then Ebola can only be transferred through bodily fluids, such as mentioned before, HIV. Ebola is treatable, though, and eventually is killed. HIV is a disease that cannot be cured, only managed. So I guess my question is - why are people in such a tizzy over Ebola?

Just recently the bubonic plague resurfaced in China. Now if you recall correctly, that’s the Black Death - the disease that destroyed over a third of the population on earth back in the Middle Ages. But no one even batted an eye. My theory is the media and how things are portrayed. There’s a huge difference in “Ebola Spotted in Africa” than “Deadly Virus Strikes America”. Of course, it is scary that it now has appeared on the home front, but, a disease is a disease. It’s still here. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care about it if it hasn’t hit shores. But as soon as Americans catch it, we bring them home to treat them; after all, we have the best medical care in the world. But some people are genuinely scared for no reason, and are uninformed; people think that this is going to cause a mass outbreak by having people here who are infected.

All of the current patients in the US have been either A) brought here from Africa for treatment, or B) just arrived back from Africa and was immediately caught. Now this begs the question, with all of the fear being harbored, and all of doom and gloom being pushed on us, why would we even allow these people to return home? It’s because America is equipped to handle this. There’s no reason to run to Kroger, buy out the milk and bread, and quarantine yourself from the general public. This outbreak is simply not going to be a huge thing – the CDC itself admitted the chances of an outbreak are extremely slim.. Ebola is treatable. However, does have a high mortality rate. Just recently the WHO released a statement saying that 70% of all people who catch Ebola end up dying. But the majority of these facts are coming from Africa, where treatment isn’t being properly administered.

Which leads into the next problem – why do we only choose to treat our own citizens instead of providing serum to infected countries? Now, I do realize that it isn’t our responsibility to play nurse maid to the rest of the world, after all, America is often criticized for having our hands in too many cookie jars. But, we do send out epidemiologists to help stop the spread of this virus. In my opinion it makes more sense to send a cure than to send out our own people, essentially putting them in jeopardy of getting the disease. It’s not fair that this is only brought up when an American is infected with it, when in reality this is not a major problem here. It’s a major problem in Western Africa. People die every day from it, yet Americans choose to act when 5 people are infected. This is reminiscent of HIV. If the CDC would’ve acted back about 35 years ago when it was first appearing, then it wouldn’t be as big of a pandemic as it’s become. The quicker we are to research a virus, and act on infection control, the quicker we can resolve and cure it. However, the CDC just recently stated that if their budget was bigger, then they could be months ahead in coming up with a cure right now. Priorities need to be chosen in a better way here in America.

But at the end of the day, this is something that is treatable. The majority of people brought here with Ebola were able to receive treatment and lived. Plasma from survivors is being used to treat the nurse who was just recently infected. If caught early, people can and will live – remember our standard of living is much higher than in Africa. We’re naturally more healthy, so infection mortality rates are much lower here. Let’s just remember that this was caught rather early for America. We will keep on moving on, and will all live.

Reposted from State Senator Curt Thompson’s blog (D-5th). He resides in Tucker, GA and is Chairman of the Special Judiciary Committee. Make sure to follow him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. His website is www.makingyourvoicecount.com