Ebola Connecting People
Ebola has been at hot topic of conversation over the past year or two, mainly because of a few cases that hit the United States. According to the Wikipedia page cited below, there haven’t even been over 10 cases of ebola in the whole of the United States whereas in West Africa there have been almost 30,000. From this information, it can be interesting to look further into two different ideas: the first, how is it possible that in two different regions of the same world so many people are affected by a virus in one but not in the other; and second, if one area is usually able to protect itself from the virus, what could cause it to be exposed?
In addressing these points it is valuable to give some context with regards to the two different countries. The United States is considered a developed country, with a GDP per capita of about $50,000 – by contrast the wealthiest countries in Africa (Botswana and Equatorial Guinea among them) do not surpass $20,000 in GDP per capita. This gives one an idea of the different means that individuals as well as the state have in these countries and hence their respective ability to provide ‘protection’ (if we can call it that) against such viruses. In essence, the US has been able to protect itself from certain viruses by restricting who is able to enter the country to begin with (keeping those infected out of the country and of the reach of its citizens) as well as containing those that are infected. Africa unfortunately did not have such resources or at the very least, was not able to control it in time to prevent it from propagating to the scale at which it currently is.
To address the second point, what happened last year that caused a few individuals in the US to be infected? Chapter 3 of the textbook states “one of the most important roles that networks play is to bridge the local and the global” and that is exactly what the world network did last year. Thomas Eric Duncan somehow slipped through the cracks, bringing the virus into the US, something that had previously been somewhat contained to African countries. He thus took a (relatively) local virus to a global stage – he acted as the local bridge. From there his nurses were infected and the network started to spread and would have continued to do so (as probably happened time ago in Africa) had it not been for the American authorities’ resources and their ability to quarantine the patients.
This gives us a good picture of the power of networks and, in some extreme cases, the importance of restricting them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_cases_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa