Behind the Headlines: Understanding the EBOLA Epidemic and Crisis Relief Initiatives
On October 17th 2014, the Yale World Fellows, the Yale Global Health Leadership Initiative (GHLI) and YAAPD organized a panel to discuss the Ebola epidemic, the international community's response and the path ahead.
This one-hour panel featured Dr. Kristina Talbert-Slagle, a Senior Scientific Officer at the Yale GHLI, Susana Edjang--Yale World Fellow and Economic, Social and Development Affairs Officer for the Executive Office of the U.N. Secretary General, as well as Christopher Lockyear, aย Yale World Fellow and the Operations Manager at Doctors Without Borders. The discussion was moderated by Jackson Institute Senior Fellow and Director of Global Health Dr. Elizabeth Bradley.
The discussion started off with the three panelists briefly introducing themselves and was followed by a concise explanation of the epidemiology of the Ebola virus. Dr. Talbert-Slagle emphasized how the virus is transmitted through droplet transmission. The highest risk for person-to-person transmission is prolonged contact with bodily fluids. She also addressed the important point of the capacity of the virus to become airborne only with the accumulation of many mutations in the virus RNA.
The discussion moved forward into addressing what the panelists thought was needed in order to combat the epidemic. The consensus was that the unpredictable nature of the epidemic required a large deployment of well-trained personnel with a strong chain of command. It is not enough to simply be provided with the money to build isolation centers because competent people are needed in staff these centers. Edjang estimated a the number to beย 500 to 600 people with the appropriate skills and willingness to work on the ground as the manpower needed.
The panel ended with a 15 minute Q & A session where in audience members, from Undergraduate students to Doctors at the Yale New Haven Hospital, could directly ask questions to the panelists. The conversation that emerged out of questions asked touched on the importance of political will in intervention from the international community as well as the danger of having a self-interested argument in crisis relief initiatives.
