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2014 Ebola Virus Outbreak
Vicente Martinez
[Institutional Affiliation(s)]
Author Note
The Assignment is the analysis of the Journal Article "Global Emergency Legal Responses to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak" published in "The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics" in 2014.
2014 Ebola Virus Outbreak
In March 2014, the World Health Organization, or WHO for short, declared an outbreak of the Ebola Virus in the Republic of Guinea has spread to the major parts of the region of West Africa. This outbreak was the most extensive one to date. Another alarming thing about this outbreak was the high number of children affected by the virus. Early data from the early studies indicated that one-fifth of the people infected were children CITATION Mar16 \l 3081 (Marlie Dulaurie, 2016).
In an article published in 2014, the researchers involved talk about the legal responses to the outbreak of the Ebola Virus and the methods employed for its control CITATION Jam14 \l 3081 (James G. Hodge, 2014). The researcher is highly critical in the introduction of this article as they discussed how the issue of the Ebola Virus is almost three decades old and there is still not a setup in place that can root the virus completely, as has been done in the case of the disease of Yaws and many others. They also declared that the WHO lacks what they term as the "teeth" to tackle the issues related to the virus.
In the third paragraph of the article, the writers pose that the questions about how the private and public sectors of the affected states will respond to the spread of the epidemic as they do not have the resources to counter this threat. They have said that only some "public health powers" are doing positive things in the course of the containment of the virus, while many are silent observers. The writers also say that the overall effort lacks a cohesive direction that can trample human rights while increasing the death toll in the region of West Africa.
In the fifth paragraph of the article, the writers criticize the numerous emergencies that are declared in the West Africa states to compensate for the lack of resources and equipment needed to fight the outbreak of the Ebola Virus. They declared these attempts as fruitless as they fail to achieve the goal, as they are numerous other problems that need to be addressed with the outbreak like the shortages of food and impacts on the economic stability of the states of West Africa. The writers are of the view that there should be corresponding attempts to address these issues as they are bound to create negative ripples in multiple affected areas.
In the seventh paragraph of the article, the writers bring up the future of West Africa in the light. They talk about the ongoing as well as future food shortages in the entire region. They also point out a dangerous level of decrease in the economic activities in the area that are the result of the outbreak of the virus, as well as its impacts. They also quote a sharp escalation in the cost of fighting the outbreak from Seventy-one million US dollars to almost Six Hundred Million US Dollars by the end of 2014. At the end of the paragraph, they conclude that the impact of the virus goes "well beyond the spread of Ebola".
In the end, the writers conclude that containment of the Ebola Virus is not possible without more international resources. Also, they think that enforcement of government measures like lockdowns; curfews and quarantines are unlikely to aid the fight against the outbreak of the Ebola Virus. In their view, these aforementioned measures will not aid the fight; rather they will act as hurdles in the movement of medicines, food and other necessities across the region of West Africa. In their views, these efforts, combined with greater humane efforts are the key to the resolution of this problem for the sake of the well-being of all Africans and the world.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY James G. Hodge, J. L. (2014). Global Emergency Legal Responses to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak. The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, 42(4), 595-601.
Marlie Dulaurie, K. M. (2016). Ebola Virus Disease: Epidemiology, Clinical Presentation, and Diagnostic and Therapeutic Modalities (Pharmacology CME). EB Medicine, https://www.ebmedicine.net/topics.php?paction=showTopicSeg&topic_id=513&seg_id=8547.
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