Ebola epidemic again reminded of itself in March this year in Guinea. Since that time, the virus that swept Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, concentrated mainly in West Africa. However, there was already recorded case of infection in the United States, in Dallas. The family members of the patient infected with a virus were placed under home quarantine. This paper is dedicated to investigation of the question whether the US government should introduce quarantine in the country and in which way. In particular, it will show why quarantine should not be introduced and what measures should be taken in the nearest future.
For the first time the Ebola virus was discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in Zaire. Recent outbreak is significantly different from the previous cases of infection in rural communities. Firstly, for the first time the virus has spread in urban areas with high population density, and since then, like an epidemic, mortality of which without care can reach 90%, while in the care - 70%, broke out in March this year, it had hit 7,500 people, of whom 3.4 thousand have already died (Wulfhorst and Morgan). Quarantine has been reported as one of the effective ways of fighting the epidemic.
According to the statement, voiced by the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention and repeated in London for an international conference on the fight against Ebola virus, to take control over the virus is not yet possible (Marty). Before it happens, the number of deaths will continue to rise if we do not take the necessary measures, and by February 2015, it will cover 1.4 million people. That is, potentially epidemic could lead to more than one million deaths. In this case, these forecasts are based on the fact that the Ebola virus will not mutate, will retain its current structure, in which the infection transmits through body fluids and is not converted into a new type of virus that is transmitted, for example, by air. This is a very optimistic assumption, since studies on the genetic structure of the virus, show that, despite the existence of a common ancestor, viruses in Guinea and Congo have evolved independently of each other, namely - we are not dealing with one, but at least with two different types of Ebola. In this case, this virus can mutate.
Secondly, as reported on the website of the Government of Canada, the experiment carried out in the laboratory using small particles sputtered to a limited extent in the air, showed that the Ebola virus can be transmitted among primates in the air. Professor Jason Kissner, broadcasting the news, subsequently reported that the text placed on a Web page, was corrected, since during the experimentб there was revealed that the virus taken from pigs may be transmitted by air to primates (Kissner). However, the fact that it in the same way was transferred from one to the other monkey was not recorded. This means that there is no evidence that the virus can be transmitted through the air from one person to another.
However, it is necessary to state that adopting quarantine measures should be conducted very carefully and based on the conclusions and statements of professionals in the sphere of medicine, not politics. According to the statement of the nurse who aided in the Ebola fight in Africa, was healthy, but still excluded from the society, it is necessary instead of panic and such quarantines to make reasonable decisions based on the current knowledge about the virus (Marty).
In an attempt to instill in people the belief that the recent outbreak has turned into a global catastrophe, strategic director of the World Health Organizations Dr. Christopher Dye said that the last recorded epidemic of Ebola has an unusually wide coverage. Nevertheless, this is due not so much to the biological characteristics of the virus, as to the features of the affected population, its health system, insufficient efforts in the area of control of the epidemic. In this connection, attention is paid to the social dimension of the epidemic (Marty). As for the countries for which the Ebola crisis hit hardest, they do have several things in common. They all are colonies in the past, and now found themselves in the role of subordinates, forced states. In these countries, there are valuable natural resources, metals, minerals. For example, in Liberia - iron and plantations for the production of palm oil, rubber, Sierra Leone - diamond mines, titanium ore, in Guinea - iron, diamonds, uranium, gold and half the world's bauxite reserves, in Nigeria - oil, gas.
Despite their wealth, these countries occupy the lowest position of the world ranking of poverty from 183 countries of the world. On the one hand, the people of these countries are not able to take advantage of these resources, on the other hand, in the years that have been experienced by pressure stabilization programs and credit conditions imposed by the IMF, these states are constantly reduced their social spending, i.e. spending on education and health (Wulfhorst and Morgan). If this devastating epidemic did not occur in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but in Washington, New York or Boston, surely, health system immediately would take the disease under control and soon would eliminate it. Thus, the source of the Ebola crisis - not a virus, but the international division of labor, the relations of domination and dependence, as well as the consequences of the transfer of capital from the periphery to the center in the new imperialism.
It is also necessary to relate to the role played in this process by the crisis of capitalism and globalization. The way for the collapse of national health systems at the time of the outbreak of the Ebola virus was prepared by neoliberalism, which began to develop as a kind of model of crisis management in the framework of the systemic crisis of capitalism, which began in the 1970s, and the policies of the IMF and the World Bank providing the framework to maintain and consolidate this model. Thus, the resources available to the state, are not on the provision of social services, and on the implementation of the debt, while the domestic market of these countries becomes open to international companies - at the cost of ruining domestic producers, unemployment and poverty.
Resource wars, ethnic dynamics that broke out in the framework of the process of globalization have led to the emergence of a large number of migrants who can easily catch an epidemic disease and become carriers of it (Kissner). At the same time, destruction that globalization has brought to the national economy, as well as the acceleration of urbanization without the necessary infrastructure, created completely protected from infection settlements and centers of food production.
Another consequence of globalization – air transfer – is becoming more available and affordable. Thus, there is infrastructure that supports the fact that in a very short time, the viruses could spread to the farthest distance. The tendency to increase the pace of capital consumption, which arose in response to the economic crisis led to a more active use of resources and the production of greenhouse gases and industrial emissions that accelerate global warming (Marty). In parallel with the climate crisis, there occurs decline of some ecosystems, there is also destruction associated with the flooding of lands and the destruction of tropical forests. All this only favors the active dissemination of viruses and mutations. Increases the risk of contamination and pollution of water resources.
Works Cited
“Ebola virus disease.” Canada.ca. Government of Canada, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
Kissner, Jason. “The Ebola Outbreak: U.S. Sponsored Bioterror?” Global Research. Centre for Research on Globalization, 16 Aug. 2014. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
Marty, Aileen. “How to avoid Ebola quarantines.” Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, 6 Nov. 2014. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
Wulfhorst, Ellen and David Morgan. “CDC says returning Ebola medical workers should not be quarantined.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 27 Oct. 2014. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
