Public Health Policy: Containing Ebola and Preventing Future Outbreaks

As of late we have heard much about the Ebola outbreak, especially since it has entered the United States and the first transmitted case here occurred only a few days ago. The interesting aspect about public health policy is that it encompasses the economic and social aspects on a relatively equal level making it difficult to arrive to a clearly feasible solution. Dealing with the Ebola situation is certainly difficult to tackle, especially since this instance of it is much different than prior outbreaks. This leads to two main questions: How can we effectively deal with the Ebola outbreak and what can we do for future public health policy to quickly prevent something like this?

The Ebola outbreak has seen about 9000 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases so far and WHO fears that 10,000 more cases will be seen by early December if it continues to spread at the current rate. One patient infects on average 1.5-2.2 other patients; if that number can be brought to below 1 the situation will greatly subside. In order to do this, cases need to be isolated and prevented early on. In order to stop this there have been some measures taken like airport screenings for potential Ebola patients. One measure that has been suggested is quarantine of West African nations. This is both unethical and unreasonable. People would simply find ways to flee to other areas in Africa and to stop that, you would need a lot of resources. Instead, I believe foreign aid and increasing public health funding are more viable solutions. It costs a lot to treat and isolate Ebola patients--hospital beds, staff, etc. Also, education of the public, teaching them proper burial techniques and hygiene can go a long way in reducing the rate of infection. It may seem out of our scope to be helping other nations in addition to our own,  but when the root of the cause is stemming from other areas, solving the issue in other nations will collectively help the issue at home as well. We have to recognize this as a global issue. If we increase foreign aid and funding for public health then workers can be deployed to poor nations that lack infrastructure and resources to contain Ebola and future epidemics. This also helps organizations like the CDC and NIH recognize threats before they even occur--allowing preemptive measures. The main question then is where to cut funding to add to public health spending, but that is another debate.

-Neal Patel

Sources:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21625781-win-it-requires-much-larger-effort-west-africa-outside-world-has-so-far

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21625813-ebola-epidemic-west-africa-poses-catastrophic-threat-region-and-could-yet

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/us/politics/debate-over-ebola-turns-to-specific-policy-requests.html?_r=0