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Ebola outbreak just as dangerous as ISIS
After an in-person briefing from the staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a “major increase” in the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Ebola has claimed over 1,200 lives in West Africa since the outbreak in December 2013
The United States will send troops, material to build field hospitals, additional health care workers, community care kits and badly needed medical supplies, according to a CNN report.
But while the response is humanitarian in nature it is similar in intensity, to that likely to be taken against the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has been sweeping across parts of Syria and Iraq like a plague, claiming city after city and killing thousands of people in the process.
This view was shared by Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander who recently likened the Ebola epidemic is as serious a threat as Islamic extremists in an NBC report.
“We must take the deadly, dangerous threat of Ebola as seriously as we take ISIS,” Alexander, a Republican, told a hearing on the epidemic.
“This is an instance where we should be running toward the burning flames with our fireproof suits on.”
The US Senate appropriations and health committees were holding a joint hearing on the epidemic, which has now infected at least 5,000 people and killed half of them, according to the World Health Organization.
“We need to declare war on Ebola,” Kansas Republican Senator Jerry Moran told the hearing.
As they spoke, President Barack Obama was arriving at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to announce a military surge to fight the epidemic.
The hearing suggests that Obama and CDC will get bipartisan support in the Senate for more cash.
“This outbreak has spread in ways that are potentially catastrophic to the world. The extent of this outbreak is tragic,” Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who leads both committees, said.
News reports have stated that countless taxis filled with families worried that they’ve become infected with Ebola currently crisscross Monrovia in search of help, similar to actions taken by civilians and military personnel in Iraq to avoid the marauding ISIS.
“Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia,” said Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization’s director-general.
Hospitals and clinics in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the countries hit hardest by the outbreak — are overwhelmed by what the WHO is calling the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.
According to CNN, the virus has killed at least 2,400 people, and thousands more are infected. There are now cases in Nigeria and Senegal.
“The number of new cases is increasing exponentially,” the WHO said, calling the situation a “dire emergency with … unprecedented dimensions of human suffering.”
“Men and women and children are just sitting, waiting to die right now,” Obama said.
“This is a daunting task, but here’s what gives us hope. The world knows how to fight this disease. It’s not a mystery. We know the science. We know how to prevent it from spreading. We know how to care for those who contract it. We know that if we take the proper steps, we can save lives. But we have to act fast,” US President Obama said.
“We can’t dawdle on this one. We have to move with force and make sure that we are catching this as best we can, given that it has already broken out in ways that we have not seen before,” he added.
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