Opinion Pieces Discuss Various Aspects Of Ebola Epidemic

Huffington Post: What Would It Really Take to Halt Ebola and Prevent Future Epidemics?
Cheryl Healton, dean of global public health at New York University and director of the NYU Global Institute of Public Health, and Christopher Dickey, clinical associate professor at the institute

“…The Ebola crisis, and future epidemics, can only be addressed with dramatic changes in direction. This begins with strengthening public health and health delivery systems around the world, including in the U.S., and fully funding the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Both have been burdened by budget cuts that can only be seen from the current perspective as having been a tragic miscalculation” (11/11).

The Hill: For Ebola, don’t forget lessons from the AIDS epidemic
Claire Pomeroy, president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation

“…So how much funding is enough?   It’s time for us to have that national conversation once again.  We do not know what the superbugs of tomorrow will look like.   But we do know that novel pathogens will emerge or existing ones will mutate, and that as global travel and migration inexorably increase, disease knows no border.   It is time for us to stop chasing at AIDS and Ebola from behind, and take stock of our capacity to commit…” (11/12).

New England Journal of Medicine: Out of Africa — Caring for Patients with Ebola
Eric Rubin, NEJM associate editor, and Lindsey Baden, NEJM deputy editor

“…The most important take-home message from these [Ebola] case reports is the importance of intensive fluid management and care. … Although this news is encouraging for patients with access to an intensive care unit, it is only more discouraging for those in areas where such infections are endemic and even basic care is often unavailable. It will be a tremendous challenge to bring to all patients the benefits of routine care, such as intravenous fluid and electrolyte support, as part of the response to this epidemic, but it must be done” (11/12).

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