Global Health Now Update on Ebola and Pandemics 11/10

EBOLA

A System-Wide Problem
The Ebola crisis in West Africa is a teachable moment.

Now is the time to remember that Ebola is just one of the overwhelming health challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries, including the deaths of 66,000 children each month from diarrhea, writes Victor K. Barbiero of the George Washington University School of Public Health in an editorial in Global Health: Science and Practice.

The Ebola outbreak, Barbiero writes, presents an opportunity to invest in broader health systems strengthening to mitigate epidemic outbreaks and reduce endemic disease burdens. Meaningful progress requires improved infrastructure at primary and secondary health facilities, prevention-focused systems and more trained, equipped and compensated health care employees.
** Global Health Science and Practice (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=0c52c0749f&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Round-Up
* The African Union, the African Development Bank and regional business leaders set up a joint $28 million crisis fund to help areas hit by the Ebola outbreak. ** Agence France Press via 9News.com (Australia) (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=d66f244b7f&e=9c1fcebfa3)

* It’s far too early to declare “mission accomplished” in the fight against Ebola, warns UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in a Washington Post op-ed. ** Washington Post (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=89214d6541&e=9c1fcebfa3)

* One mystery with Ebola is how it affects children, and why some children survive and others succumb; this piece focuses on children in an International Medical Corps treatment center in Suakoko, Liberia. ** The New York Times (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=784e6b1b63&e=9c1fcebfa3)

* More than 100 Philippines peacekeepers returning from Liberia will be isolated on an island for 21 days to be checked for Ebola, as the Philippines’ military cited fears about the public’s reaction and said the quarantine measure is in line with WHO protocols. ** Reuters (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=2accd92737&e=9c1fcebfa3)

PANDEMICS

Remembering the Spanish Flu
Quarantines, running out of hospital beds and coffins, and a terrifying pile-up of bodies as gravediggers walk off the job … no, this isn’t about Ebola in 2014, but Philadelphia in 1918, as the Spanish flu raged through a world already reeling from WWI.

That virus killed more people—up to 100 million, possibly—than the war, writes Perri Klass, a professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University, in this fascinating article.

She explains how the flu, which may have started in America, became known as the Spanish flu. Spain was not in the war—allowing the uncensored Spanish press to cover the outbreak, while the British, French and Germans suppressed the news. The outbreak prompted the world improve public health infrastructures, but in the end we were saved only because the flu receded, just like it does every year, emphasizes Klass, who in closing urges everyone to get their flu shots.
** CNN (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=9336d19655&e=9c1fcebfa3)


Related: The world can’t hide from pandemics – ** Washington Post (Opinion, Lawrence Summers) (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=a8e1b27fd4&e=9c1fcebfa3)