The following opinion pieces discuss issues related to the ongoing Ebola epidemic.

Washington Post: A global attention on disease gives Bill Gates his moment
Michael Gerson, opinion writer

“…In a tragic, unsought sense, this is [Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair Bill] Gates’s moment. The focus of his life — preventable disease — is suddenly the obsession of the world. Gates, who has donated $50 million to the Ebola fight (through his foundation), will give a major address Sunday at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. … Gates’s remarks on Ebola are the most likely to reach the media bloodstream. … The focus of Gates’s speech, however, is not flu or Ebola; it is malaria. … During his upcoming speech, Gates will announce a significant increase in his foundation’s malaria commitment…” (10/30).

Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Military Mission Against Ebola
Jonathan Moreno, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Stephan Xenakis, a retired Army brigadier general and adjunct professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

“Military health care forces under Africom, the United States Africa Command, have been deployed to assist Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in setting up preventive health services and treatment centers for the Ebola epidemic. The mission of the U.S. military, charged with defending our country’s national security, sometimes includes responding to epidemics that could threaten America and its allies. It has the experience and the infrastructure to do so. … The U.S. military deployment to this afflicted region could turn out to have incalculable benefits” (10/30).

Foreign Policy: West Africa’s Financial Immune Deficiency
Rick Rowden, author

“…Since the 1980s, when the doctrines of Thatcher and Reagan reigned supreme, the IMF’s monetarist approach has meant prioritizing price stability (low inflation) and fiscal restraint (low budget deficits) over other spending goals in developing countries. These policies had the effect of greatly limiting overall public spending each year. Because of this squeeze, most of the budget went to immediate needs and recurrent expenditures and little was left over for scaling up long-term public investment in infrastructure, including the underlying public health infrastructure. … [I]f the international community is serious about addressing chronic under-investment in the public health systems in these countries, it will also have to revise the obvious shortcomings of IMF fiscal and monetary policies” (10/30).