Ebola Virus Disease is a severe fatal disease in human beings. It is transmitted to people from wild animals, and spread via human-to-human transmission (WHO, 2017). The transmission from animals to human beings often results from human beings butchering, cooking, and eating infected animals. The human-to-human transmission occurs when one gets in contact with bodily fluids or secretions of infected persons, such as vomit, sweat, saliva, urine, diarrhea, semen, blood, breast milk, or mucous membranes of infected people. The contraction through mucous membrane is the source of one of the biggest myths regarding Ebola in America, that it is airborne. The disease is not airborne, but a healthy person may contact it when they inhale air with germs content emitted by an infected person when they cough or sneeze. One does not necessarily have to be in contact with an infected person to get sick. Infection can also occur if a healthy person comes into contact with items contaminated with secretions from infected people; items such as clothing, gloves, syringe, bed linen, etc. For this reason, the people who are most at risk of contracting the disease are health workers and family members of infected people, and those who prepare bodies of infected deceased persons for burials. The early symptoms of the Ebola Virus Disease include fatigue, pain in the muscles, headache, and sore throat. The later symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea, and internal and external bleeding in some cases.
In America, the first case of Ebola was reported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on September 30, 2014 (CDC, 2014). The victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, was from Liberia visiting his family in Dallas when he was diagnosed with the disease. He succumbed to the fatal disease on 8th October. In the week following his death, two nurses who had provided care for Duncan while at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas were diagnosed with Ebola. These two nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, underwent treatment and were later declared free of Ebola. In the following weeks, three more people were diagnosed with Ebola in the United States; seven infected patients were evacuated from West Africa into the US, bringing the total number of Ebola cases to eleven. Out of this, only two patients died. Two people contracted the virus in the US and both survived. Hundreds of people who had been in contact with infected persons, families, health workers, and airline passengers were quarantined tested and monitored for potential Ebola virus infection. All of them came out negative of the Ebola infection test.
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Compared to the other parts of the world, the cases of Ebola in America was not epidemic. It, however, cause a widespread of panic all the same. Despite only two persons contacting the virus within the United States, many people developed the fear of catching the disease. An opinion poll study done in November 2014 discovered that Ebola was ranked the third among the health problems facing USA (SteelFisher et al., 2015). In fact, more than 40% Americans, in 2014, feared that their families would be infected with the Ebola virus within the next year or so. Reasons for such public response was done by some other researchers, who revealed that the Ebola-related News segments that dominated the media, in the U.S. during October and early November (Towers et al., 2015). The other reasons for nationwide panic were a statement by a well-known epidemiologist Michael Osterholm. In his article, the epidemiologist suggested that there were possibilities of the Ebola virus mutating to become contagious through the air (Smith, 2015). Some politicians and pundits went to the extent of asking the government to impose travel bans to and from infected countries in West Africa. The Obama administration, however, opposed this idea, citing that it would result in more harm than good. Ebola had quite a toll on America socially.
Fear of Ebola has had a major impact on the US economy, more than the actual disease. Whenever people develop the fear of contracting a disease, they change some aspects of their routine or behavior, like staying home from work, keeping their children away from school, or canceling planned trips. Some schools even advised children of health workers for CDC who had been deployed to Africa, against coming to school. These actions have economic effects as they affect consumer behavior and businesses. Staying home to keep the children from schools affects the US economy by altering productivity in the workplace. A prolonged scenario of (fear of) Ebola would have resulted in the closing of schools, which would cost the country billions of dollars, such as the case of the H1N1 in 2009 (Kim, 2013). The emergence of the Ebola Virus in America also caused a drop of Airline stocks, out of suspicions that Americans would not be willing to travel. The choice against traveling either domestically or internationally also affected the airline and tourism industries.
Amongst all these fears and false theories, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rose up to address the issue of Ebola, providing quarantine for infected and potentially patients, testing for the virus and also offering treatments for the same. CDC is a federal agency based in Atlanta that deals with conducting health promotions and engages in preparedness and prevention activities (Kim, 2013). The organization was established in 1964, with the objective of improving public health in the United States. Following the outbreak of Ebola, the CDC took precautions to contain the spread of the disease within America. The CDC handled Ebola in the US through the following means:
Issuing warning (Level 3 notice) for US citizens to avoid unnecessary travel to West Africa.
Assisting with screening activities to prevent infected travelers from boarding planes.
Preparing US healthcare facilities on ways to safely manage potential Ebola patients.
Investigating exposed travelers and notifying them to take necessary health actions.
Quarantining, monitoring, and testing for the virus among people who have been in contact with infected persons.
The CDC also activated its Emergency Operations Centre to assist in the coordination of technical assistance and disease control actions with partners such as World Health Organization (WHO) and other US government agencies.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention went out of their way to ensure Ebola in the US did not become widespread.
The United States experienced a few cases of Ebola in 2014 but did not have an Ebola epidemic. The main reason behind this is that America has excellent infection control measures, highly qualified and trained healthcare providers, and access to quality equipment that helped in the early detection of the virus, quarantine of the potentially infected persons, and treatment of the disease.
References
Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease). (2014, December 16). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/united-states-imported-case.html
Kim, S. (2013, October 3). How Fear of Ebola Could Impact the US Economy. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/fear-ebola-impact-us-economy/story?id=25915737
Smith, T. C. (2015, October 06). Ebola Panic Peaked in America a Year Ago. What Were We Thinking? Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/10/ebola_panic_anniversary_predictions_of_a_u_s_epidemic_didn_t_come_true.html
SteelFisher, G. K., Blendon, R. J., & Lasala-Blanco, N. (2015). Ebola in the United States—public reactions and implications. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(9), 789-791.
Towers, S., Afzal, S., Bernal, G., Bliss, N., Brown, S., Espinoza, B., ... & Mamada, R. (2015). Mass media and the contagion of fear: the case of Ebola in America. PloS one, 10(6), e0129179.
WHO. (n.d.). Ebola virus disease. Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
Why Are Americans so Scared of Ebola? (2014, August 26). Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/why-are-americans-so-scared-ebola-n188806
