Slashdot Mirror
Obama Administration Seeks $58M To Put (Partly) Toward Fighting Ebola
The Associated Press reports (here, as carried by the Washington Times) that The White House is asking Congress for $58 million above current levels to speed the production of promising drugs to fight Ebola and additional flexibility for the Department of Homeland Security to cope with the thousands of unaccompanied Central American children still arriving at the southern border. ... [T]he $58 million request for the Centers for Disease Control would help the agency ramp up production and testing of the experimental drug called ZMapp, which has shown promise in fighting the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. It would also help keep the development and manufacturing of two Ebola vaccines on track. The White House request also seeks to use $10 million in unused balances at the Department of Health and Human Services to help with the Ebola outbreak in Africa. The scarcity of ZMapp, the most promising treatment known for Ebola, is such that the third U.S. doctor to have been returned after being infected by the disease will be treated without it.
Despite what people think Ebola is not very contagious in the western world where personal hygiene is actually practised. Ebola requires prolonged exposure or direct contact with bodily fluids. It's not like a influenza which can easily spread around an office from a simple sneeze.
Personally I was more concerned about the SARS outbreak a few years ago than a few people coming and going from a "part of the world" which has an Ebola epidemic.
ZMapp is not a mass-produced medication. It is an experimental treatment. Calling it "scarce" gives entirely the wrong impression -- it is amazing that it is available for clinical use at all.
It's certainly worth it to produce ZMapp in significant quantities -- people would rather take an untested drug than try to survive Ebola -- but there is no "scarcity" here. Perhaps if many people wish to try it we'll have a better idea if it actually works.
Wrong.
Calling it scarce completely fits all dictionary and popular use definitions of the word 'scarce'.