THE number of deaths from Ebola in West Africa has almost tripled since the World Health Organisation declared the disease a public health emergency of international concern early last month.
Though Ebola is controllable via public health measures, such as isolation of patients and tracking and monitoring of patients’ close contacts, such measures are heavily resource-intensive. The situation is spiralling out of control partly because affected countries already lack necessary resources — and the resource gap grows with the exponentially rising number of cases.
While previous Ebola outbreaks were limited to small rural African communities, the current epidemic is unprecedented in affecting major population centres. It has killed more than all previous Ebola outbreaks combined, and the bigger it gets the harder it will be to stop.
Given that affected countries are among the poorest, justice demands more assistance from wealthy developed nations and donor organisations.