The Level Of Contagion Around Ebola Virus

Because the Ebola Virus is so highly contagious, spreading the virus to family members, who helped care for the patient and even those that bury the patient, is almost unavoidable. One way to gain community acceptance is by allowing proper traditional burials while taking the necessary safety precautions (Clerk, Griensven, Gunther, Malvy,& McElroy 2019). It is important religiously and culturally for families and the community to be able to participate in the burial procedures. Communal burial participation can be accomplished with safety precautions such as wearing proper protective gear, placing the body in a body bag, and sanitizing the person’s home prior to going to the burial site. To ease fears within the communities the WHO asks for local responders who speak the languages and are familiar with these communities impacted by the EVD. One of the other ways that have made patients and families feel more comfortable is to create clinics in the heart of towns instead of being hidden away (McKenzie & Swails 2019).

Two experimental vaccines to prevent Ebola have been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and one of those vaccines is expected to be granted Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval this year. Once the EVD vaccine RVSV-ZEBOV gains approval it should help prevent the deadly spread of Ebola. While this vaccine was not licensed yet, it was used in the August 2018 outbreak in Guinea; this vaccine was used to inoculate people who had contact with diagnosed Ebola patients. Even if the person already was infected and not showing signs yet, the vaccine appears to lessen the disease symptoms and increase survival rates in this trial study. The WHO was able to fast track the research and development and to facilitate access to this Ebola vaccine that continues to save lives in the current Ebola outbreak. So far, more than 100,000 people have been vaccinated against the Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The trial vaccine has been 97% effective in the Congo but has led to complacency on locating contacts (McKenzie & Swails 2019).

Having access to health care gives patients higher survival rates, unfortunately, one half of the global population does not have access to essential health services and if they do the cost of healthcare may force them into extreme poverty. The social determinants of health that are impacting the efforts to eradicate EVD are the lack of access to healthcare, remote locations, rumors surrounding the virus, fear of treatment, lack of education hindering understanding, war, violence against healthcare workers, and lack of an FDA approved vaccine. The Ebola Virus Disease impacts population health by re-directing money away from other diseases in order to cover this particular epidemic.

The WHO is now treating Ebola patients in individual transparent safe rooms called Biosecure Emergency Care Units, better known as the cube, which are made of thin plastic. This allows medical staff to see the patient and helps to ease the fears of the patient and their families and to debunk rumors surrounding Ebola and healthcare (WHO 2019). The WHO constantly monitors outbreaks and the last assessment, as of October 2019, shows very high national and regional risk levels, with global risk levels remaining low. Over a twenty-one-day period in the Democratic Republic of the Congo there were 3,152 new confirmed cases of EVD with 2,182 cases that died (67% fatality rate) and five of those deaths were health care workers (CDC 2019).

In the 2014 to 2015 EVD outbreak, news coverage in the United States was exaggerating the risk of contracting Ebola and then feigning the importance of closing our borders, under the false pretenses of protecting its citizens. Politicians utilized the germ panic to play on the heighten fears of their constituents and then search for minority groups to place the blame upon. Political leaders promised to crack down on Ebola and this became a fear tactic that was used to pull more voters in their direction. The over sensationalizing of the Ebola Virus Disease through media and by politicians caused unnecessary public fear by comparing it to bioterrorism (Parmet & Sinha 2017). Once the mid-term elections were over the hype, paranoia, and propaganda had stopped and faded into the background. The 2014 panic showed the need for attention to be placed on global health threats, however these can backfire and cause distrust of authorities and create blame on other nationalities (Parmet & Sinha 2017).

The politicians in the United States have capitalized on the epidemic that is the Ebola Virus Disease. Citizens of the United States need to make a conscious effort to stop being led by fear and instead to start paying more attention to global health concerns. Education is a tool of change allowing people to assess, without political bias, what the real threats are to our country’s health. By educating yourself about global health threats it allows you to see them as more than just a headline. Change happens when you associate yourself with the problem.