Video: “EBOLA”

Reflection Paper

In the year 1976, Ebola climbed out of its unknown hiding place, and caused the death of 340 people. In 2014, Ebola once again had climbed out of its hiding place and caused an outbreak in West Africa. A total of 2,000 deaths and thousands of cases documented by the end of 2014 that left all in panic. Feared gripped upon victim’s faces, and uncertainty tortured the minds of all on this planet including myself as a medical staff nurse. There had been more transmission between humans in the past four months than there had ever in the past 500 or more years concerning this deadly Ebola virus. As the infections transmitted and multiplied, it evolved so fast that any single mode vaccine could very well not contain it.

As the body count tallies where up, it’s was beginning to appear like Ebola may be some kind of population reduction scheme as we all saw and the video portrayed. The people of Zaire where waiting outside of clinics, churches and in their homes for a treatment of this horrible disease, but there was no cure or vaccine at hand. Seeing this video and watching the news on TV made me feel helpless as a medical staff individual. Fear was upon us at hospitals, as we forced to watch people die on a daily basis thru the media, hoping that they would be saved from the violent death of the Ebola virus. Hospital nationwide where building isolation centers and procedures for cases appearing in the United States. Scientist and researchers had carried out numerous studies and investigations, but no one had been able to find the right explanations.

Prevention of a worldwide outbreak was lying within the education of what the virus was capable of doing, how Ebola victims can be properly treated, and by performing prompt action to isolate the virus before it has dispersed. However, in West Africa people where receptive to this education because they were being held against their will in an inaccessible location to prevent the spread of the virus behind iron fences. These people were not told exactly why they were isolated. After seeing this video I felt horrible and it made me upset to think as humans the government would quarantine people to one location without explanation. I’ve never experienced this, but seeing it on the screen in class made me realize how the world sometimes reacts without thinking of what might happen to those being put in this position. I teared up in class, thinking if that was me I would’ve been in panic, questioning every moment, raging mad and ready to fight whoever put me there. These where humans not being told exactly why this preventive action was taken they were just housed as if they where cattle with no reason.

I found it strange that the US CDC owned a patent on a particular strain of Ebola known as “Ebobun”? was awarded to them in 2010. (Patent #CA2741523A1, www.naturalnews.com, Ebola Deaths, October 8, 2014). And then there is the question: What does the future hold beyond 2014? If the virus takes hold in cities, infecting an immune system suppressed population, how quickly could cities like Chicago turn to chaos, like giant ant hills being stepped on and splattered on and splattered into panic. That was the feel of the video, people where falling into panic when the military started coming into their villages and homes without any knowledge of why they where there. I would have felt violated, enraged in anger and possibly take the same action they did, protest and fight the government for they had no information on what was the plan or situation at hand. They felt and I would’ve felt as if the government was trying to reduce population and this was set up to seem as an outbreak. The public in West Africa was treated as if they were of no importance and didn’t need to know why the military was there or why they were put in lockdown locations making them believe this was a weapon of war to reduce population.

A weapon of war seemed like a proper thing to believe after watching this video. I cannot imagine living under poverty as they are and now being put away as if they were not worthy of medical or government attention with no answer or allowed access to parts of their village. How might viruses be the new weapon of war, used to destabilize a region and give excuse for military intervention to come in and take over the country’s resources, government, policing and medical care? How might patented viruses be the perfect opportunity to launch new vaccination businesses to create a boon and control populations simultaneously. I too would ask why would US military soldiers be sent into the region, and why would martial law and lockdowns be ordered throughout these countries. Apparently, not all in the villages were okay with this kind of takeover. It created a hostile environment for both the villagers and military personnel. Healthcare workers who volunteered to educate going house to house and checking in to see if any one villager was infected would be at risk of being attacked. Put yourself in the shoes of the villager and healthcare worker, as a villager I would be terrified of a healthcare worker coming to my house who is not one of my own kind but from a different country trying to convince me this is an epidemic but at the time only happening in Africa in my village. This whole situation was poorly handled by the African government giving their own people the right to doubt them.

The population of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia is about 22 million as stated in the video. So, about 1.4 million cases of Ebola is approximately 6 percent of the total populations of these three West Africa nations. Home care by those who survive the Ebola Virus Disease would be provided by a maximum of about 10% of 1.4 million, or about 140,000 persons. (www.naturalnews.com, Ebola Deaths, October 8, 2014) In my opinion, this is a very conservative estimate because it neglects those who survive who will not become home caregivers; it does not mention those who may contract the disease in countries outside of the three hardest hit nations so far, and the paradigm of isolation care is inadequate. Nobody is going to build 100,000 beds as shown on the video only 100 beds were available and knowing that the Nations Bank have billions possibly trillions to provide more beds to help this horrible virus not spread and leave Africa was disappointing to watch.

As a healthcare provider myself, I cannot imagine working in West Africa with minimal supply and having to be creative about using essentials provided. It is scary enough to say your are there to help those infected and you could possibly be infected let alone no supplies to help protect the staff. Medical staff from “Doctors without Borders” are heaven sent, taking the risks of being infected and still caring for the sick. Doctors without Borders just proved that nations can come together and help those in need with a risk of being infected, minimal supply and minimal space to care for those in need. I had never thought about volunteering because of the high risk situation you are put in but after seeing this video I am considering doing so.

2015 is now a more promising future with Ebola, although West Africa has about 50 new cases (confirmed, probable and suspected) every day, mostly in Sierra Leone, the rate of new cases is on a downward trend. But that has happened before during the epidemic. In May, for example, the World Organization projected that in a matter of days the Ebola outbreak in Liberia “could be declared over”. However in July 2014, the number of cases in Liberia began to rise rapidly, peaking in August and September, followed by an equally rapid decline. Three months ago, health workers where identifying about 240 new cases a day in West Africa. Now the WHO talks about new case number halving, because in Guinea new case numbers go down by half every 10 days, in Liberia every 14 days and in Sierra Leone every 19 days. (www.cba.ca, Ebola Outbreak 2015, January 18, 2015). There has been a huge community education campaign in the three countries about what Ebola does, how people can protect themselves, the importance of changing funeral practices such as washing the body, and the need to report and identify illness. Quickly identifying ill people and treating them in isolation where also key in these countries. In addition, identifying and tracking everyone who was recently in contact with a new Ebola patient were also key to slowing this epidemic. It is critical to continue investment and hard work, although it is difficult to keep up the pace.

At this time there is no vaccine for Ebola. Treatments available are such as ZMapp and TKM-Ebola readily available near potential outbreak zones. Although the vaccines have the potential to make a big difference, they are no substitute, especially in Africa where you have poor public health infrastructure. Dr. Allison Geisbert, a microbiologist and infectious disease consultant at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto who has been working with the World Health Organization (WHO) along with Canadian scientist, camp up with VSV-EBOV, an experimental vaccine now in trials. Because it is a single injection, fast acting vaccine, it holds promise for use as an emergency response up to date as of now. (www.cba.ca, Ebola Outbreak 2015, January 18, 2015). With that said, Ebola is still dangerously out there and ready to attack again, scientist and researchers are still looking for the vaccine to cure it, however it’s a waiting game but preventative measures should always be taken.