In The News

Should We Ban Flights From Countries With Ebola Outbreaks?

Vauhini Vara October 9, 2014
Diagnosis of the first US Ebola case was followed by petitions demanding travel bans from West Africa. But modern airline travel entails multiple connections, and travel bans would not work, explains Vauhini Vara for the New Yorker. Bans would disrupt economies and slow transfer of essential supplies and personnel required to stem the infectious disease. Determined individuals could circumvent...

Muslim Pilgrims Begin Hajj Pilgrimage

October 8, 2014
Saudi Arabia has dispatched more security personnel and health workers for this year’s annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca – 85,000 security and civil defense officers and 18 aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters have been deployed, reports Agence France Presse. This security expansion is largely in response to the alarming spread of the Islamic State on the attack in Iraq and Syria and threatening...

Health Care Gaps Increase Vulnerability to Ebola

Laurie Garrett October 6, 2014
Ebola will test the world’s diverse systems of health care. The United States is alone among advanced economies in lacking a universal health care system, and its health care costs more per capita than that of any other country. A system with unequal benefits makes the country vulnerable on two fronts: US hospitals offer state-of-the art treatment, a plane ride away, for the insured or those with...

How to Fund the Ebola Fight

Paula Kavathas September 18, 2014
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Ebola today, at the request of the United States. The disease is spreading quickly in West Africa and, with global air travel, could quickly hop new borders. The health infrastructure of West Africa is weak, with limited resources and trained personnel. Prevention is the goal for a virus with no approved vaccine or therapeutic. Funding is...

Heading Off a Bigger Ebola Catastrophe

Scott Gottlieb and Tevi Troy September 15, 2014
Ebola is spreading rapidly through African communities and devastating economies. Advanced nations can prevent the spread beyond West Africa by organizing intense research efforts and development of vaccines, encouraging donations for the prevention effort, and mandating screening efforts while maintaining open borders. Paradoxically, allowing open borders reduces fear. Otherwise, the infected...

Ebola Is Rapidly Mutating As It Spreads Across West Africa

Michaeleen Doucleff September 1, 2014
An international team – 20 researchers working around the clock – sequenced DNA from 78 human subjects infected with Ebola and report the virus is mutating quickly. “The Ebola genome is incredibly simple,” writes Michaeleen Doucleff for NPR in the United States, based on an interview with a lead author on the study, Pardis Sabeti. computational biologist at Harvard University. Ebola has seven...

The Economics of Ebola

Amara Konneh August 14, 2014
The Ebola threat disrupts daily routines in the four countries where infections are spreading and concern is high in neighboring nations and beyond about doing business or accepting travelers and students from the region. The numbers of infections are small. Meticulous attention to precautionary measures can prevent the spread, but a 60 percent fatality rate is alarming. “The reason this...