Missing the Forest for the Trees: First Ebola Victim Diagnosed on U.S. Soil Dies

Death of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas Fuels Alarm Over Ebola
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/us/ebola-us-thomas-eric-duncan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Over the past week or so, the media has been riled up posting constant updates on the condition of Eric Duncan, a Liberian national and the first individual diagnosed with the Ebola Virus on U.S soil. This Wednesday, Duncan succumbed to the illness and passed at Texas Health Presbyterian. While the presence of the virus on the continent is concerning, media networks have exploited the unfortunate circumstances of Duncan to unduly arouse panic and fear.

While consistently reiterating irrelevent and redundent information about Duncan's personal history and activities, media sources have quite consistently and egregiously been remiss in their discussion of the difficulty with which the virus is transmitted. The virus relies on exchanges of body fluids in order to spread from one host to another. By convenienty abstaining from mentioning this fact, they exaggerate the risk this man's illness poses to the general public. Instead, journalists appear content to inflate articles with emotionally charged anecdotes and testimonials. The map presented in the article misrepresents the significance of the reported cases in Europe and North America as they remain relatively isolated in nature.

Far more noteworthy are the procedures in place to deal with such potentially malicious viruses. The article mentions how doctors at Texas Health Presbyterian failed to diagnose and recognize the possibility of Duncan's contraction of the virus while abroad. The time frame and means by which Duncan was eventually diagnosed are far more concerning. The Washington Post recently noted how the World Health Organization in conjunction with many of the most prominent developed nations  sub-national organizations failed to effectively identify the threat the virus posed and its potential for outbreak.

Far too much attention has been granted to individual cases of Ebola outbreak. The broader bureaucratic failures associated with the failed attempts of containment have much more significant implications as to how effectively we as a globe can collective problems.