Paul Farmer’s ’Diary’ in the London Review of Books. Great pieces on #Ebola - long but worth it
►http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary
“Weak health systems, not unprecedented virulence or a previously unknown mode of transmission, are to blame for Ebola’s rapid spread. [However] if patients are promptly diagnosed and receive aggressive supportive care ... the great majority, as many as 90 per cent, should survive”
Paul Farmer · Diary: Ebola
►http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary
Anyone whose metrics or proof are judged wanting is likely to receive a cool reception, even though the #Ebola crisis should serve as an object lesson and rebuke to those who tolerate anaemic state funding of, or even cutbacks in, public health and healthcare delivery. Without staff, stuff, space and systems, nothing can be done.
If such things were thin on the ground in Monrovia and Freetown, they were all but absent in rural regions. (...)
Ebola is more a symptom of a weak healthcare system than anything else. But until this diagnosis is agreed on, there’s plenty of room for other, more exotic explanations.