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Lessons to be learned in Ebola fallout
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In an editorial published in JAMA Internal Medicine, health experts said Ebola has already succeeded in disrupting social stability and may lead to public health reform on a global level.
Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues described the Ebola outbreak as a “Black Swan” event; an outlier that carries extreme impact and changes in its wake. They argued that, despite a lower death toll than AIDS, malaria or other widespread infectious diseases, Ebola “could have major ramifications for global public health in ways that no other modern infectious disease has.”
Michael T. Osterholm
The first lesson that can be learned, they wrote, is the potential for an infectious disease outbreak to affect social stability.
“There is now clear evidence that an infectious disease such as Ebola virus disease can threaten the stability of a country’s or region’s government, economy and social fabric,” Osterholm and colleagues wrote. “This is another painful lesson that what kills us may be very different from what frightens us or substantially affects our social systems.”
With this potential in mind, they argued that researchers and public health officials should not only focus on the historical morbidity and mortality of an emerging infectious disease, but also the features of the strain that could potentially lead to an epidemic.
Their second takeaway is the weaknesses of current global heath infrastructure.
“We are concerned that, without fundamental reform, WHO will no longer be able to fulfill the mandate in its constitution to be the leading, coordinating agency for global health, even though the organization may have a strong desire to do so,” they wrote. “If its member states were to ensure adequate funding and authority, it could become, once again, the leading global health agency — and it should.”
Osterholm and colleagues pointed out that after more than 4 decades of discouraging military intervention in other humanitarian crises, Médecins Sans Frontières has called for a military response to the Ebola epidemic. The armed intervention by the United States and other key nations can provide the logistical expertise needed to combat the outbreak, they said.
“Once again, we are reminded that microbes can humble us and that we should constantly work to improve our ability to detect, predict and respond to the Black Swan events that they may cause,” they concluded.
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