On the way back home from the GHC quarterly retreat in Virginia, a stranger on the subway tried to strike a conversation with the Boston fellows. He was curious about where we were from, what we did, etc. When he learned that we work with organizations at the frontlines of Global/Public Health, he immediately commented on Ebola and fear. Fear! Fear, I have now realized is more powerful than the disease. Fear transmits faster, and fear damages quicker.
The fear mongering prevalent in the popular media alarms me. When the Ebola virus disease hit the shores of the United States and Europe, numerous media sources started questioning the efficacy of the health checks in place to stop the contagion. These news sources capitalized on the fear that people have about the disease. Despite persistent efforts from the medical community to dissipate fear, many keep on raising doubts in science and in the health systems here to control this epidemic. The fear mongering of this scope is counterproductive. It deviates us from the discussions about efforts to stop the disease.
Fear mongering does great disservice to thousands who have lost their dear ones, and to the hundred others who are heroically providing healthcare to the infected. Fear mongering induces anger, seclusion, hatred, irrational decisions. We fear what we don’t know, and yes, there are a lot of things we don’t know about the epidemic, the biggest being the cure! But, we need to dismantle fear mongering by supporting evidence based knowledge. We need to change the course of discussions from – “oh, Ebola is so scary” to “what can I do to help to control this epidemic?”
My role as the community coordinator of GHDonline allows me to do just that- foster a scientific and rational dialogue about Ebola. GHDonline, the online platform of Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, recently opened the Ebola Response community. We hope to provide valuable resources for colleagues who are at the frontlines in West Africa. While I am frustrated that I am not able to “do something” on the ground, I have been fortunate to translate the information I receive through news, scholarly journals and podcasts to reduce stigma around the disease.
But, we all know that just presenting facts and statistics can only take us so far; it will not be enough to quell the mounting public concern. We need to find effective ways to communicate about the disease. Discussions can start within a family or a friend circle. We should start by asking our parents, siblings or friends- “What do you think about this Ebola crisis?” “What do you think we should do to help?”
The current Ebola crisis has demonstrated that there are numerous loopholes in international humanitarian response mechanisms. It has flashed out deep inequality in health systems in West Africa and North America. It has displayed how little we have advanced in coming up with therapies to treat this disease (we first learned about Ebola in 1976). While these challenges and obstacles are enormous to overcome at this very moment, we cannot give in. In fact, we should utilize every opportunity to educate ourselves and others about what we can do to support. And I think, the easiest way to support is to resist fear mongering with educated dialogue.