The ebola story that should outrage you

This was the sub-title of a story in the United States magazine, The New Republic, which highlighted the fact that out of the nine reported cases of ebola in the United states only one patient has died and seven have fully recovered while one is still undergoing treatment, yet almost half of the people infected by the virus in West Africa have died.

Africa, the story says, lacks the 4 Ses: Staff, stuff, space and systems.

“The one (US) patient who died was Duncan and we have a pretty good idea of why that happened. Physicians misdiagnosed his ailment when he first showed up with symptoms. It was only upon his return to the hospital, several days later, they recognized a case of Ebola—and, by then, the disease had progressed. He didn’t simply have a fever. He was vomiting and had diarrhea,” the story says.

“An Ebola diagnosis need not be a death sentence,” the magazine quotes Paul Farmer, an infectious disease specialist at Harvard, as saying.  “If patients are promptly diagnosed and receive aggressive supportive care—including fluid resuscitation, electrolyte replacement and blood products—the great majority, as many as 90 percent should survive.”

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