Explaining and responding to the Ebola epidemic
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COMMENTARY
Open Access
Explaining and responding to the Ebola epidemic Solomon Benatar Abstract The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is not merely a biomedical problem that can be seen in isolation and dealt with only through emergency medical rescue processes. The ethical dilemmas surfaced by this epidemic are also not confined to the usual micro-ethical problems associated with medical care and medical research. The pandemic, as one of many manifestations of failed human and social development that has brought the world to dangerous ‘tipping points’, requires deep introspection and action to address upstream causal processes. Keywords: Africa, Ebola, Causal explanations, Public health, Social development, Tipping point, Ethics, International relations, Global political economy, Human rights, Climate change, Progress The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is not merely a biomedical problem that can be seen in isolation and dealt with only through emergency medical rescue processes. The ethical dilemmas surfaced by this epidemic are also not confined to the usual micro-ethical problems associated with medical care and medical research. The most superficial explanation for the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is that it is merely a biomedical problem arising from transmission of an animal virus to humans. A deeper explanation relates to failure to install well-known public health measures necessary to prevent the rapid spread of infection, and failure to develop vaccines and drugs for use in good time [1]. These are notable failures, given several small epidemics since the emergence of Ebola in 1976 and knowledge of the rapidly fatal outcome of this infection. The deepest, less easily perceived and largely ignored explanation is that the epidemic is one of many manifestations of failed human and social development that has brought some countries (for example Liberia [2]), Sierra Leone and the world [3-5] to dangerous ‘tipping points ’ ’as exemplified by: Widening disparities in wealth and health with
extensive severe poverty Resurgence and global spread of old infectious
diseases – tuberculosis, malaria
Correspondence: [email protected] Bioethics Centre, Philosophy Department, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town, 3.03 Humanities Building, University Ave, Rondebosch, Cape Town, South Africa
Rising drug resistance Emergence of new infectious diseases: HIV, SARS,
Ebola etc. Reduction in energy, water and food security Failure to achieve human rights and human
potential more extensively Major economic crises, corruption, exploitation and
unrepayable debt Escalating social conflict, proliferation of
fundamentalist groups, ethnic and religious conflict, anarchy and displacement of millions of people Failure to reproduce caring social institutions such as educational, health and other infra-structural services Ongoing population growth Wasteful consumption patterns by the privileged Global warming and environmental degradation
Upstream causal forces that include the structure of the glob
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