A week after that, I wrote about the "ice bucket challenge" (remember that?) and how I refused to participate in it:
How would I justify contributing to ALS as a higher priority compared to a contribution to fight any one of those neglected diseases that affect millions and kills millions?Ebola is back in the news. And not in a good way.
The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday after a case was confirmed in a city of 2 million people .An international health emergency.
WHO had been heavily criticized for its sluggish response to the West Africa outbreak, which it repeatedly declined to declare a global emergency until the virus was spreading explosively in three countries and nearly 1,000 people were dead. Internal documents later showed WHO held off partly out of fear a declaration would anger the countries involved and hurt their economies.A reminder that we live in a political world, in which even declaring a health emergency is not simply based on facts!
Don't expect any sense of empathy from the current American President. Not only because he is a sociopath with no sense of empathy. But also because he has tweeted like this in the past:
The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our "borders." Act fast!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2014
The sociopath didn't support Obama's decision to send troops to help with the crisis. I wrote an oped applauding it, and quoted a commenter from back then:Can you believe that the U.S. will be sending 3000 troops to Africa to help with Ebola.They will come home infected? We have enough problems— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2014
A few days after the president's decision, an old high school friend, who has returned to India after a career that took him all over the world, commented on my blog: "The U.S. action of committing troops to fight the disease is probably one of the finest acts of the Obama presidency. Your government didn't have to do it, but it did. That is the best of America on show." The best, indeed!63 million, including former commenters, elected to power the sociopath, and we can now be assured that the US will only try to insulate itself by building walls, closing flights, ...
This commentary by a former USAID administrator notes how important the American effort was:
when America did lead, the rest of the world followed. The United States rallied technical experts and leaders from governments all over the world to launch a coordinated response to the Ebola crisis in Western Africa. Together, we leveraged American investments to yield new commitments from others and reminded the world that when there’s a moral imperative to act on global health, we will.And now?
As someone who has helped fight this ugly disease before, my experience compels me to speak out to Republicans, Democrats and anyone who is in a position of influence about the steps we can take to help control this outbreak. Right now, we’re watching a crisis turn into a catastrophe. We have the tools to defeat Ebola. What we’re missing is the political will. The time to start caring about Ebola isn’t when it reaches the shores of the United States or Europe, it’s now.If only somebody can talk about this to tRump during his golf outings, which have already cost us taxpayers $106 million!
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