AS of this writing, the Ebola virus disease has claimed the lives of close to 5,000 people, most of them in West Africa, in countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The disease has already crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and at least four people in the United States have been diagnosed with it.
But, according to Cable News Network reports, so far, “every American Ebola patient who has received a blood transfusion from a survivor has also survived.”
New York City’s Filipino population is a little over 200,000—a small figure compared to the 3.4 million Filipinos living and working in the US. Thus, Ebola striking Filipinos is not far-fetched.
But while it may already be true that Filipinos and other minorities have a greater chance of being infected with the deadly virus, the chances of it reaching the Philippines may not be as close.
Despite claims by a handful of hospitals in the country that they can somehow deal with Ebola, should it reach the archipelago, doubts about medical efficiency linger. Most hospital personnel are not trained to handle the disease. Those in West Africa who had been exposed to the virus and got infected were mostly medical practitioners, people trained to handle deadly diseases.
The question is: If medical personnel, trained as they are to deal with sundry diseases, still get infected, how can a population less likely to deal with it survive a possible infection?
Effectively dealing with the possibility of a pandemic requires logistics. As of this writing, hospitals are on alert for possible infections in people coming from West Africa.
Experts are already predicting the chances of the virus reaching the country. Schools will have to stop operations; so should businesses, if Ebola is to be contained. Public places where people congregate—malls, churches, parks, moviehouses, restaurants and bars, among others—may have to be closed for the meantime.
The toll on the economy, let alone human life, would be staggering if and when the pandemic is managed poorly.
The Department of Health should now lobby for more improved hospital equipment designed to deal with Ebola infections. It’s an investment worth its weight in gold. The Philippines successfully dealt with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome when it struck more than a decade ago. With billions going to corruption, it’s high time our officials rethought the cost of a massive pandemic in our midst.
Medical practitioners are the country’s first line of defense. They must enjoy the first benefits of protection. No future could be so grim than the one where our medical personnel suffer the deadly effects of the virus.
Who will then be left to care for the patients?
Image credits: Jimbo Albano