Ebola

                You know about it Ebola if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past month.  It is a Bacterium that is having a serious outbreak in western Africa and now it is causing a major concern for, not only the African countries, but everyone else around the world. It’s a huge conversation starter.  When someone coughs you always hear someone say “It’s Ebola”. It interests me that although it has killed a few thousand in Africa and a few foreigners, it gets so much more publicity than something like Malaria or Tuberculosis which kills so many more people every year, especially in Africa.

                We can all thank video games, Hollywood, and some good traits for pandemics for causing this giant popularity and scare of the disease. Pandemic movies and video games have imprinted in our minds the ability that one super bug has, which is wiping out humanity. Although pandemics have been overhyped, they are still something to be prepared for. Any microorganism that is very good at spreading and killing can kill us all off just like that. The United States government and hospitals has really taken some heat lately for how it’s controlled the very minimum Ebola outbreak here at home. The way everything was handled made it seem like we really aren’t ready if something threatening our country was spreading in the US. There were no major procedures or rules set in place to help quarantine the patients, most hospitals don’t have the equipment to take care of an epidemic.  It is scary how unprepared we were, patients and people who have the disease could walk around town and were not quarantined for a long period of time. We need to step up our control of diseases like this, it is really important and if we aren’t ready for a super bug, bad things could happen.

                There are many other illnesses and diseases that cause major problems and kill a lot more people. Ebola is just an example of a disease that can turn into a pandemic if we aren’t careful. Steps must be taken to eliminate diseases like this before the spiral out of control and become a threat to humankind.