Kofi Annan: The world ignored Ebola until it spread from Africa

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Wealthy countries were slow to tackle the Ebola epidemic as it began in Africa, former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said in tough criticism of the response to the crisis on Thursday.

“I am bitterly disappointed by the response… I am disappointed in the international community for not moving faster,” Annan told the flagship BBC programme Newsnight.

“If the crisis had hit some other region it probably would have been handled very differently. In fact when you look at the evolution of the crisis, the international community really woke up when the disease got to America and Europe.”

The Ghanaian diplomat, who led the United Nations for a decade until 2006, said it should have been clear that the spread of the virus from its epicentre in western Africa to countries overseas was only a matter of time.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/former-u-n-head-kofi-annan-the-world-ignored-ebola-until-it-spread-from-africa/comments/#disqus

How long have we known about Ebola? Ten years now it seems.

[valerief]

1. World leaders had 40 years to contain it. And they didn't. nt

[kestrel91316]

3. Public health history FAIL. Ebola is enzootic to Africa, meaning it lives in wildlife there and

probably has for millions of years. And EACH OF THE PRIOR OUTBREAKS was completely controlled AND ENDED by standard public health measures: isolation of victims, contact tracing, monitoring of contacts, rinse and repeat.

It only got out of control THIS MARCH when it started up in a chronically war-torn area with little capability of standard public health measures.

[rug]

7. If it was in Maryland it would've been eradicated not contained.

[valerief]

10. Right. Nothing was in place after 40 years to prevent its spread. We were too busy

bombing the shit out of ME countries.

[kestrel91316]

18. CDC was in place. EIS was in place. BSL-4 labs and biocontainment

patient care units were in place.

WTH are you talking about????

The only thing we lacked was PRIVATE hospital management in too many places (primarily conservative areas) who hate government and refused to follow recommended preparedness guidelines.

[valerief]

20. How did it spread in West Africa? Civil war was allowed and it spread. nt

[malaise]

5. Do you know that the US Government owns the

patent for Ebola.
I find that scary.

[valerief]

8. There's a patent for it? Holy crap. nt

[rug]

17. Meanwhile ebola.com is for sale for $150,000.

He bought Ebola.com in 2008 for $US13,500 and sees now as a good time to cash in.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/jon-schultz-is-selling-ebolacom-for-us150000/story-fnjwmwrh-1227091933338

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. Ebay got it's name from Ebola.

[rug]

27. .

eBay

For a while, it was widely believed that, in 1995, then-28-year old software developer Pierre Omidyar created a website called AuctionWeb so his fiancée could buy and sell PEZ dispensers.

While the PEZ part isn't true -- Omidyar was simply looking for a way to make something cool online -- it does make for a good story. What's not legend, though, is that the first item sold on eBay was anything but glamorous -- a broken laser pointer.

Omidyar only intended the laser pointer listing to be a test, but was surprised to find that someone actually bought it -- according to reports, the buyer collected broken laser pointers.

Thinking he might be on to something, Omidyar started working in earnest on the program. While contemplating names for the site, he initially planned to use the name of his computer consulting company, Echo Bay.

However, echobay was already taken (and still is). So Omidyar shortened the name to "ebay" and bought the web address that we all know and love.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/22/website.name.origins.mf/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. Pssst...

http://fortune.com/2014/10/16/ebay-started-as-a-website-about-ebola

[rug]

32. .

Re: What does the EBAY in EBAY mean?

[e-mail]
Community Member
Posts: 1,005
Registered: ‎01-25-2003
in reply to originaldiode ‎05-15-2002 12:50 PM

Hi everyone,

According to our founder, Pierre Omidyar, eBay stands for electronic Bay. This is partially because Pierre was living in the south Bay area when he founded the company.

For more information please click on the following URL

http://pages.ebay.com/community/aboutebay/overview/management.html

Maeve

Meet others who share your interests. Join an eBay Group today! .

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-New-to-eBay/What-does-the-EBAY-in-EBAY-mean/td-p/108903

[Spitfire of ATJ]

35. That's what they say NOW that they bought it.

[rug]

36. That post is 11 years old.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

38. The purchase was neary 20 years ago.

[kestrel91316]

19. Not for this ebola. There is a very good discussion on that whole fearmongering rumor and

the truth behind it over on This Week in Virology. I forget which of their ebola discussions it's in but you should probably listen to all of them. You'll be less scared. Nothing nefarious going on.

http://www.twiv.tv/tag/ebola/

[Barack_America]

29. Contain it? How? The eradication of poverty and consumption of bushmeat?

They're not even certain of the natural host of the disease.

[valerief]

30. Bet it'd be cheaper than never-ending war. nt

[kestrel91316]

2. 40 years.

[rug]

4. He's absolutely right.

Ten years ago it was talk about Saddam's biological weapons.

[malaise]

9. The only reason the US and Britain sent personnel is because

the Cubans embarrassed everyone by sending a significant medical team.

[rug]

12. I hadn't seen that. They've done a lot of that over the years.

Vive La Revolución!

[malaise]

15. More here

http://www.liberationnews.org/socialist-cuba-responds-with-the-largest-medical-team-to-treat-ebola-in-w-africa/
<snip>
While President Barack Obama is talking about “quick action,” revolutionary Cuba has responded with the largest medical team of any country on the planet. Cuba has sent 165 medical professionals who are now in Sierra Leone, and an additional 296 are to be dispatched to Liberia and Guinea.

These medical professionals are seasoned in natural and epidemiological disasters from work on numerous other medical missions in other countries. The team has over 15 years’ experience in such crises according to Roberto Morales, the Cuban Minister of Public Health.

This is one act of solidarity among many that Cuba has offered Africa to enhance the health of the people and address health crisis over the last 55 years. Currently, Cuba has 50,000 medical personnel in 66 countries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/04/in-the-medical-response-to-ebola-cuba-is-punching-far-above-its-weight/
<snip>
While the international community has been accused of dragging its feet on the Ebola crisis, Cuba, a country of just 11 million people that still enjoys a fraught relationship with the United States, has emerged as a crucial provider of medical expertise in the West African nations hit by Ebola.

On Thursday, 165 health professionals from the country arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join the fight against Ebola – the largest medical team of any single foreign nation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And after being trained to deal with Ebola, a further 296 Cuban doctors and nurses will go to Liberia and Guinea, the other two countries worst hit by the crisis.

Cuba is, by any measure, not a wealthy country. It had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of slightly more than $68 billion in 2011, according to the World Bank, putting it a few places higher than Belarus. At $6,051, its GDP per capita was less than one-sixth of Britain's. However, its official response to Ebola seems far more robust than many countries far wealthier than it – and serves as further proof that health-care professionals are up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.

Cuba's universal health-care system enables such an export. The country nationalized its health care shortly after its revolution, ending private health care and guaranteeing free health care in its constitution. The results have been widely praised. In 2008, evaluating 30 years of Cuba's "primary health care revolution," the Bulletin of the World Health Organization pointed to impressive strides that the country had made in certain health indicators. "These indicators – which are close or equal to those in developed countries – speak for themselves," Gail Reed noted, pointing to a huge reduction in number of deaths for children under five years old and Cuba's high life expectancy of 77 years.

[rug]

16. That is great news.

Meanwhile the U.S. is talking about how much it will cost.

[LovingA2andMI]

37. This ^^^^^^^

DESERVES its OWN POST.

First, Thank you Cuba! Second, this is what happens when the Profit Motive is taken out of Healthcare and the LIVES OF PEOPLE are placed foremost.

Second, America and our Band-Aid Privatized Healthcare System should hold OUR HEADS DOWN in COMPLETE SHAME.......

[Luminous Animal]

6. ....

&cfs=1

[valerief]

11. Excellent! nt

[Quayblue]

14. I appreciate this is posted frequently

because it's true.

[beam me up scottie]

40. Damn

What a powerful image.

[uppityperson]

13. Big k&r

[burrowowl]

21. K&R!!!!!

[TorchTheWitch]

22. exactly

Just like the first world nations ignored the genocide in Rwanda. They don't care about a bunch of poor black people in Africa. The only reason other countries finally woke up is when infected people got to theirs/our shores.

[Fred Sanders]

23. The freaky American media are going to be very, very embarrassed shortly, and revealed finally to

be the puppets of capitalism and right wing dark money, finally?



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141015-ebola-virus-outbreak-pandemic-zoonotic-contagion/

[Nye Bevan]

24. So did countries such as Liberia ask the US to help with their Ebola crisis, and the US refused?

Or should the US have sent in an anti-Ebola team anyway, whether or not they were wanted?

[LostInAnomie]

25. Shhh... we've got a good circle jerk going here.

Don't ruin it, Nye.

[skepticscott]

33. Ten years? Far more than that

Laurie Garrett devoted over a hundred pages to Ebola in The Coming Plague and Betrayal of Trust (which came out in 1994 and 2000). Anyone paying attention has know about this for a long time. Public health problems like this don't just fly out of someone's ass. They are usually the result of years of neglect, denial, lack of concern and "not MY problem" attitudes. The only reason anyone is paying attention to it now is that CNN-addled middle class white America is shitting their pants. Ebola could have killed everyone in Africa, and most people in this country wouldn't have batted an eye, but now that they can't ignore it, it's become a "crisis".

[malaise]

39. +1.000 n/t

[laundry_queen]

42. bingo. nt

[Skittles]

34. ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

[Not a Fan]

41. How long has Ebola been around...

MUCH longer than ten years. When it first surfaced it terrified all of us. We have no excuses.

[davidn3600]

43. Ebola typically burns itself out

Usually Ebola outbreaks don't last more than a few months. Usually containing it is pretty simple. It usually happens in central Africa in small villages. So it's easy to contain and control contacts. And we wait for the virus to burn out.

But this time it is different. This outbreak is in west Africa with a higher population density, poor infrastructure, poor understanding, and a population that doesn't trust the government.

This is a type of outbreak that we haven't faced with this disease. And many people knew at the beginning of Summer that this one was going to be bad.