Yes, Ebola has hit America. This week, a man in Dallas died as a result of becoming contaminated with Ebola, prompting authorities to quarantine as many as 100 people who may have had contact with him. And although Ebola itself is not highly contagious (NPR reports that it only spreads to an average of 1.5 to 2 people per infected individual), the panic resulting from its spread to America is.
Thus far, the Ebola virus has killed 3,439 people in four West African countries, according to the World Health Organization, forcing the international community to scramble to develop a response. However, dozens of far deadlier, more contagious and preventable diseases pose a greater threat to global health than Ebola.
The Harvard School of Public Health conducted a survey back in August and found that nearly 40 percent of Americans are concerned that a full-on outbreak of Ebola will devastate America within the next year. But are these fears justified? No, and diverting attention from other more common, preventable diseases in order to fight Ebola could have even more devastating consequences.
Dr. Eugene Beresin, collaborating on a piece with Dr. Steve Schlozman for Psychology Today, explained that fear of disease is a natural response, but it needs to be tempered with information. “Germs, especially new germs, are scary,” they wrote. “We have a long and probably evolutionarily derived tendency to fear disease, and when new ones rear their heads, we get a bit shaken up.” However, we have succumbed to this natural response, which has led to “classical mass hysteria.”
They even describe this tendency to freak out in evolutionary terms: “Catastrophic thinking is in fact a defense against the worst possible scenario. None of us wants to be caught unprepared should things really, however unlikely, go south.”
Despite this natural reaction to panic over Ebola, especially with all of its incessant media coverage, other diseases pose a far greater threat to global health.
For example, diarrhea is a fully preventable condition, yet it takes the lives of about 1.5 million children each year, which amounts to more than malaria, AIDS and measles combined, according to the World Health Organization and UNICEF. NPR reported that in Uganda alone, diarrhea kills 19,700 children per year.
“Inexpensive and effective treatments for diarrhea exist, but in developing countries only 39 percent of children with diarrhea receive the recommended treatment,” Ann Veneman, the head of UNICEF, said in a 2009 report.
Additionally, Ebola pales in comparison to the H1N1 swine flu, which killed more than 284,000 in 2009 and 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In comparison to other deadly diseases, Ebola isn’t anywhere near as contagious as diseases such as tuberculosis, which can be spread through the air. Ebola is only spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, which includes, but is not limited to, urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit and breast milk. When these bodily fluids come into contact with broken skin or mucous membranes in the eyes, nose or mouth, then an individual is likely to become infected; it is not spread through the air or by water.
It’s impact so far does not even come close to malaria, which killed 1,725 people and sickened more than 1.4 million in 2012 in Liberia alone.
Thus far, only one American has died after contracting Ebola, yet 600,000 people die each year from heart disease. That equates to one out of every four deaths in the U.S. Additionally, smoking cigarettes causes over 480,000 deaths annually in the U.S. from smoking cigarettes.
Calm down America – only one person has been diagnosed with Ebola thus far, and the disease can only be transmitted through bodily fluids as opposed to the air; unless you are sharing a soda with someone who has Ebola, your chances of catching it are really slim to none. The only epidemic worth reporting in America at this point is the outbreak of panic.
