Problem

In-depth report on the tragedy of how Ebola has destroyed families, partly as a result of members trying to care for each other.

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                                   Nov. 14, 2014

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

"...This destruction of families is the central tragedy of the epidemic. On a continent with many weak states, the extended family is Africa’s most important institution by far.

"That is especially true in the nations ravaged by the disease — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — three of Africa’s poorest and most fragile countries. Ebola’s effects on the region, in undermining the very institution that has kept its societies together, could be long-term and far-reaching...."
 
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NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED                                                                                                          Nov. 13, 2014

By Chernor Bah,  a former refugee from the civil war in Sierra Leone, is a youth advocate for the Global Partnership for Education and a co-founder of A World at School.

Arriving at Port Loko, one of the largest towns in the north of Sierra Leone, is like reaching a country under siege. In the face of Ebola, the 500,000 inhabitants of this district have been sealed off from the world, stigmatized like a cellblock of criminals, and left largely to fend for themselves. Even to bring them food and schoolbooks, you need a government pass. And they are not alone. Counting other districts under quarantine, more than a third of the nation cannot move freely.

THE HILL                                                          Nov. 12, 2014
Commentary by Claire Pomeroy, M.D., M.B.A, President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

...Without a commitment by Congress to fund basic medical research, the lives of millions are put at risk, along with the nation’s economic and national security. Outbreaks of deadly viruses – including AIDS or Ebola – have shown us the costs of not remaining vigilant.

  So how much funding is enough? It’s time for us to have that national conversation once again. We do not know what the superbugs of tomorrow will look like. But we do know that novel pathogens will emerge or existing ones will mutate, and that as global travel and migration inexorably increase, disease knows no border. It is time for us to stop chasing at AIDS and Ebola from behind, and take stock of our capacity to commit.

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                Nov.9, 2014

The number of new cases of Ebola in west Africa is decreasing, suggesting that quickly-enacted emergency precautions have so far been successful. Yet there is a valuable tool that epidemiologists would like to use to track the disease and help stamp it out: data from mobile phones.

These "call data records" identify where the device is and has been, along with its proximity to other devices, among other things. It lets experts infer, with empirical data and in real-time, where people are, and how many, and where they are probably headed. Yet despite talks among researchers, phone companies, governments—and even UN agencies and the GSMA, the mobile-industry’s trade association—the records have not yet been released. Why not?

It is not for a lack of utility. A bevvy of cases already underscore the data’s usefulness.....

If the data are so helpful, why are they not used? Several factors are to blame....