Ebola?s lessons, painfully learned at great cost in dollars and human lives

[Gert van der Hoek]

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 3h3 hours ago
Best article I've read in some time. 7 painful lessons that #Ebola taught us frm @bylenasun et al http://wapo.st/1tsC7Dn h/t @NyawiraNjoroge

[h=1] December 28

Ebola?s lessons, painfully learned at great cost in dollars and human lives[/h] A year after it began, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continues to be unpredictable, forcing governments and aid groups to improvise strategies as they chase a virus that is unencumbered by borders or bureaucracy.

The people fighting Ebola are coming up with lists of lessons learned ? not only for the current battle, which has killed more than 7,500 people and is far from over, but also for future outbreaks of deadly contagions.

Many of the lessons are surprising and specific ? the color of body bags turns out to be important, as does the design of Ebola clinics. The most common-sense lesson is that all Ebola is local; solutions can?t be dictated from Geneva or New York.

The broader and more ominous lesson is that global health organizations aren?t ready for a pandemic. There are countless conferences, reports and carefully wrought strategies for stopping epidemics, but this terrible year has demonstrated how hard it is to get resources ? even something as simple as bars of soap and buckets of bleach ? to vulnerable people on the front line of an explosive disease outbreak.

Read more: Washington Post