TITLE:
The Ebola Crisis in the West African Region: Should It Have Been So Severe?
AUTHORS:
Ezeakukwu E. Nsoedo
KEYWORDS:
Lack of Leadership, Health Policy, Foresight, Budget, Poverty
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.2 No.10,
October
29,
2014
ABSTRACT: A lot of factors magnified the severity of the Ebola outbreak in the West African region. The various regional governments lack the rudimental health care structure and support equipment necessary to checkmate outbreak of infectious diseases like Ebola. The overriding factor that impacted the management of the spread of Ebola disease is the lack of leadership among the various national governments to adapt available health information in the formulation of their national health care policies that should have led the way in training personnel with expertise to manage Ebola disease. The consequence was that when the Ebola outbreak ensued, the region did not have enough qualified personnel to combat the infection, culminating in the massive death casualty of health providers due to the disease. Seeming apathy from the United Nations demonstrated in the big budgetary cut for the World Health Organization’s program in the region has a direct impact to the severity of the Ebola outbreak. Hopefully the policy issues identified in this study will unite the member countries in the West African region to have a functional health research laboratory to help diagnose infectious diseases. The international community would do well to provide assistance timely to avoid unnecessary loss of lives and resources in the affected areas, and the entire world will be good for that.