Obama Calls For Greater Foreign Help Against Ebola

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

Oct 6, 4:31 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says some foreign countries are not doing enough to confront the Ebola crisis in West Africa. He says the international community has not been as aggressive as it needs to be to help contain what he's calling a top national security issue for the United States.

Obama says he intends to put pressure on other foreign heads of state to "make sure that they are doing everything that they can to join us in this effort."

He said the chances for an Ebola outbreak in the United States are low, but he says his administration is working on additional screening protocols for international airline passengers both in the U.S. and overseas.

Obama spoke Monday after meeting with his national security team.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_EBOLA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-06-16-31-48

[JimDandy]

1. Get the money flowing...

Pay all the health workers in Western Africa huge hazard pay, get them the equipment they need to give them a fighting chance to stay alive while helping the sick, and get their families to an uninfected locale as part of the hazard pay package;

Add your suggestion:

[riversedge]

2. You have hit on the worker side of the equation but

also need a HUGE local education campaign. I know this will take time but it is so important.

[JimDandy]

8. Thanks for your suggestion. Would you expound on that, please? n/t

[riversedge]

10. I was talking

about--or rather thinking about the state of local medicine in these countries. I know of the poverty and lack of basic public health services but what do the people themselves do when sick? I really know nothing of their beliefs in medicine and cures. I assume lots is still herbal. Are they superstitious. What about dead bodies. How do they prepare for burial?? Do they cleanse the body as part of the ritual? Do they believe in modern medicine? Yes, they show up at the clinics--but in late stages of the disease from what I have read.


Do they have a basic concept of the 'germ' ?? Just wondering about all of these questions.

[JimDandy]

11. Good questions.

Of course they need answers before any suggestions can be posed on how to conduct Education about Ebola in West Africa.

[rocktivity]

6. We had a coalition of the willing, now we need a coalition of the healing.

If the world can figure out how to pool its military resources and personnel for the purpose of killing people, the world can figure out how to pool its medical resources and personnel for the purpose of keeping people alive.


rocktivity

[JimDandy]

7. Great post! My sentiments exactly.

I'd rather the abbreviation, MIC, stood for Medical Industrial Complex and we poured money into that, instead of the Military Industrial Complex.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. somone posted a article the other day

saying the Rethugs hated Island Nation of Cuba has sent some 5 hundred doctors to the Ebola region. Were are you MSM? Oh,forgot,you turds only do press releases form your corporate bosses.

[branford]

4. Do you have a link referring to a reliable source concerning the Cuba doctors? nt

[Purveyor]

5. Here: In The Medical Response To Ebola, Cuba Is Punching Far Above Its Weight

While the international community has been accused of dragging its feet on the Ebola crisis, Cuba, a country of just 11 million people that still enjoys a fraught relationship with the United States, has emerged as a crucial provider of medical expertise in the West African nations hit by Ebola.

On Thursday, 165 health professionals from the country arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join the fight against Ebola – the largest medical team of any single foreign nation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And after being trained to deal with Ebola, a further 296 Cuban doctors and nurses will go to Liberia and Guinea, the other two countries worst hit by the crisis.

Cuba is, by any measure, not a wealthy country. It had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of slightly more than $68 billion in 2011, according to the World Bank, putting it a few places higher than Belarus. At $6,051, its GDP per capita was less than one-sixth of Britain's. However, its official response to Ebola seems far more robust than many countries far wealthier than it – and serves as further proof that health-care professionals are up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.

Cuba's universal health-care system enables such an export. The country nationalized its health care shortly after its revolution, ending private health care and guaranteeing free health care in its constitution. The results have been widely praised. In 2008, evaluating 30 years of Cuba's "primary health care revolution," the Bulletin of the World Health Organization pointed to impressive strides that the country had made in certain health indicators. "These indicators – which are close or equal to those in developed countries – speak for themselves," Gail Reed noted, pointing to a huge reduction in number of deaths for children under five years old and Cuba's high life expectancy of 77 years.

Cuba's health-care success is built upon its medical training. After the Cuban revolution, half of the country's 6,000 doctors fled and the country was forced to rebuild its work force. The training system grew so much that by 2008, it was training 20,000 foreigners a year to be doctors, nurses and dentists, largely free of charge.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/04/in-the-medical-response-to-ebola-cuba-is-punching-far-above-its-weight/

[JimDandy]

9. Cuba has for the last fifty years frequently

provide support (military/medical personnel) to various African countries during times of conflict/medical crisis that is far and above it's weight.

Good for them.