Opinion Rising spectre

So far, countries outside west Africa have managed public concern over Ebola by emphasising the low risk of contracting the disease and stressing the shambolic state of healthcare in countries at the epicentre of the outbreak. But this somewhat self-serving narrative has been punctured by cases of the infection reported in the US and Spain, which have stoked fears of a global epidemic. Given that there is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, and this outbreak is the deadliest ever, with a fatality rate of 70 per cent, there may even be a whiff of inevitability about the rising levels of panic. The WHO’s dire pronouncement of 10,000 new cases a week by December has not helped.

Ever since it was confirmed that a second health worker at a Dallas hospital had contracted the disease just a day after being cleared to fly, the Obama administration has had to justify its handling of the threat. Other governments, including India’s, have been spooked into taking stricter measures to guard against Ebola while bolstering preparedness. Most nations, including the US, UK and India, have stepped up screening at airports and other points of entry, and the Union health ministry said it would start conducting mock drills simulating treatment for a potentially infected patient.

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But the failure of a purportedly well-prepared public health system, as in the US, to contain the infection, serves as a chastening reminder that stringent screening and contact tracing — where every person who came into contact with an infected patient is identified and found — are hardly foolproof strategies, particularly in a densely populated country like India. The worry that Indian hospitals could turn into Ebola-dissemination centres is exacerbated by how overburdened and chaotic most of them are. Only two public centres can currently diagnose the disease, increasing the chances that the virus could go undetected, especially since it shares symptoms with dengue and typhoid, which will see a seasonal uptick. India can learn from Nigeria, which is hardly known for its healthcare infrastructure — Nigeria was able to successfully contain the disease because the Lagos state and federal governments and the private sector collaborated to defeat it.