The World Health Organization estimates Ebola cases could soon reach 10,000 a week in West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports it has received 800 calls a day since the first case of Ebola was diagnosed here in the U.S. Dallas-area medical supply stores report a 75-percent increase in personal protection equipment purchases by local citizens.
As U.S. hospitals scramble for more information on how to protect their health care workers from Ebola, one thing is clear: The only outbreak spreading in our country is fear. U.S. health care professionals will make honest mistakes in treating Ebola cases, but those mistakes will not result in a widespread Ebola epidemic in this country, because the virus is not spread through casual contact.
Charitable organizations continue to reach out to nations such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to assist with basic health care needs in the region — providing critical support in treating the Ebola crisis.
Hospitals and clinics in these poor West African countries do not have the staff and infrastructures necessary to stem this outbreak on their own. In Liberia, for example, the Ministry of Health reported this year that before the Ebola outbreak, that nation only had 50 doctors working in public health facilities that served 4.3 million residents.
The only way to contain this outbreak is to focus our own resources in West Africa. On a recent visit to the CDC, President Barack Obama stressed the important role international nonprofit organizations play in helping combat this epidemic.
MedShare International, based in Atlanta, is one of those organizations. We are shipping items such as rubber gloves, masks, gowns, syringes, infrared thermometers and face shields – all donated from major corporations or by local hospitals. With generous donations from people who want to help, we have shipped seventeen 40-foot containers, and have supplies available to ship another seven containers in the next month. Many of these items are non-existent in West Africa.
These items have been sent to the disaster zone from the first days of the Ebola crisis. We have been sending supplies to poor health systems worldwide for years. Now, with Ebola, supplies that would last months are used in a matter of days. These nations need more and will continue to ask us for more even months after the crisis ends.
Each day, Americans passively watch news accounts and see thousands of people contracting this deadly disease half a world away. Then, fear hits home when a handful of cases enter the U.S. If we want to be proactive and help prevent Ebola from entering our communities, we must support the charities working day and night to protect health care workers in Africa.
It is the only way we can help those who care for the afflicted, and the only way to prevent its continued spread. It is our responsibility.
