The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently projected that if trends continue unimpeded, cases of Ebola could pass the million mark by January. While that’s an unlikely scenario, many are still wondering: how on earth did it get this bad?
There was a period in April when it appeared that the Ebola outbreak had subsided, prompting a collective sigh of relief. Guinea’s Ministry of Health even said that country’s caseload appeared to be under control. But the outbreak didn’t subside. Instead, it barreled through interconnected towns and villages in more populated areas of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. And after the outbreak’s perceived lull, however, came one of the largest flare-ups. Some scientists say that during that time, their warnings were ignored.
In a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the original researchers to discover Ebola in 1976, writes:
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“Ebola has reached the point where it could establish itself as an endemic infection because of a highly inadequate and late global response. … It was not until five months and 1,000 deaths later that a public health emergency was declared, and it was nearly another two months before a humanitarian response began to be put in place.”
Read full original article: The 5 Biggest Mistakes in the Ebola Outbreak (So Far)
