CFR Daily News Brief 10/7 Spain Reports First Ebola Case Contracted Outside of West Africa

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Daily News Brief October 7, 2014

Top of the Agenda Spain Reports First Ebola Case Contracted Outside of West Africa Spanish authorities announced Monday that a nurse there became the first person to contract Ebola outside of West Africa (BBC). The nurse had treated two Spanish missionaries who died after being flown home for care; her husband has since been quarantined. In Sierra Leone, Doctors Without Borders also reported that one of its health workers contracted Ebola (NYT) despite the organization's reputation for infection control and protection of its workers. The case in Spain was diagnosed after scientists reported that there was a high risk for Ebola to reach (Reuters) France and the UK by the end of October due to flight travel patterns. Analysis "The fight against Ebola is also a fight against inequality. The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high- and middle-income counties. However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. So now thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place," writes World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim in the Huffington Post. "While a great push is now underway for development of Ebola vaccines and treatments, nothing could immediately be a greater game-changer than a quick, reliable Ebola screening test. Such an assay would help quell the rising panic in the United States, prevent passage of laws that could be viewed as discriminatory against people of color and/or Africans, and provide nearly instantaneous hospital diagnosis," writes Laurie Garrett in Foreign Policy. "The scary truth of the Ebola pandemic is that the world's leading governments and institutions were, for the most part, caught napping. They thought (as did much of the western media) that this outbreak was another grisly but isolated act in Africa's ongoing human tragedy. They thought it would not affect us. Now it is plain that it will, they badly need to get organized. They must act together, and quickly, not just to beat Ebola now, but in order to better deal with future pandemics when they come, as they surely will," writes the Observer.