Lessons from Ebola: The Infectious Disease Era, And The Need To Prepare, Will Never Be Over

With the wall-to-wall news coverage of Ebola recently, it’s hard for many to distinguish fact from fiction and to really understand the risk the disease poses and how prepared we are to fight it. Fighting infectious diseases requires constant vigilance. Along with Ebola, health officials around the globe are closely watching other emerging threats: MERS-CoV, pandemic flu strains, Marburg, Chikungunya and Enterovirus D68. The best defense to all of these threats is a good offense — detecting, treating and containing as quickly and effectively as possible. And yet, we have consistently degraded our ability to respond to these new, emerging and re-emerging threats by underfunding and undercutting existing capabilities and expecting the country to ramp up overnight when new threats emerge. Learning — And Forgetting — Earlier Lessons Thirteen years ago, the country had another big wake-up call — the September 11 and anthrax tragedies, which pointed out major weaknesses in our ability to respond to health emergencies. These events helped inspire a series of smart and strategic investments to bolster basic capabilities in our system. But, over time, we’ve let our guard down and have watched those investments receive cut after cut. The result is that many protections Americans expect and take for granted have eroded, leaving us unnecessarily vulnerable. Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Cooperative Agreement Funding—which awards funds to states, ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: All Categories Global Health Hospitals Pharma Policy Prevention Public Health Research Workforce Source Type: blogs