Dear Senator __,
No one wants to die of ebola. The current outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented and unique in that it has not been quarantined and is out of control. The local countries, Doctors Without Borders, WHO, and the UN do not have sufficient resources to respond to the outbreak. The longer it continues to spread unchecked, the more costly it will ultimately be to bring under control for the world community. Make no mistake. Viruses do not respect borders, nor do they respect nationality, wealth, or anything else that divides people.
If this virus goes unchecked in Africa, it will eventually reach to the U.S. sooner or later. Virginia has a number of densely populated metropolitan areas that would be vulnerable to a highly contagious, biohazard level 4 virus with no cure. Please, let's take this seriously now and use resources to save lives instead of selling more weapons to terrorist in the Middle East.
Best,
Randomfacts
President Obama wants $500 million for weapons for Syrian rebels. This is so some Syrians can go and kill other Syrians. Meanwhile, countries in West Africa are scrambling just for enough medical kits, suits, and staff to respond to the spreading ebola sub-regional crisis.
I believe we are at the (relatively) early stages of the ebola outbreak, which means that $1 spend today will be worth $100 spend six months from now, when the virus may have spread to other countries and the death toll may be much higher. I pray this is not so, but we must be prepared for this possibility.
These west African countries have virtually nothing. It is an area where a little American help can go a long way.
Ebola is a horrendous disease to die from. It is an outrage that there are experimental treatments out there that have worked on animals but are not being offered to humans. If you had ebola, wouldn't you want to take the risk of an experimental treatment?
Too many people take comfort in the fact that ebola does not spread through air, but requires direct contact with bodily fluids, or objects that have contacted bodily fluids. The problem is that in densely populated area, people's bodily fluids are constantly in unconscious contact with one another. This disease has an incubation period of up to 21 days.
That means that an upper class member of Conakry society could contract the disease from a servant, get on a plane to the U.S., showing no symptoms, arrive in a U.S. city without detection. After they begin showing symptoms, they are contagious. At that point they could leave their sweat on a doorknob that is used by the public, or on a handlebar on a public bus or subway, which will then be touched by dozens of more people.
This is what I mean-- the analogy is AIDS. We cannot let this disease just spread unchecked in Africa and expect that it will never touch us. We live in a globalized world now where thousands of people cross borders every day. The best way to fight this thing is hard and early. Now. We need to get this on the agenda and get the U.S. government to respond. This is why I sent this letter.