The problem & reason there is no cure is that there has never really been a threat from Ebola in the West, thus there has been no real profit in creating vaccines or treatments for the drug companies as theses African nations could not afford them. Possibly the hysteria being caused by the media might give the drug companies an incentive, after all in the last few weeks there have been a number of untested vaccines & treatments appearing on the global stage, and all it took were a couple of Western deaths
Trouble is that in West Africa where I have been a lot over the last 30 years it is very humid, and you sweet profusely, so even shaking hands with someone can probably transmit it.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the human race. The Ebola virus has always been limited to Africa, so taking into account my opening sentence, authorities in the US, UK and Spain flew their own citizens back for treatment. It's inevitable that an act of carelessness by those treating those patients will cause the disease the spread. The only question is how widespread.....
Limited to Africa - so far. One of the medical staff who worked on the guy who died in the States has now tested positive..... It seems inevitable that, in an age of world travel, it will show up outside Africa. (Indeed, the arrival of the virus in West Africa was unexpected, being as it had previously been restricted to the Congo area).
We had the same panic over HIV in the 80s/90s I'm guessing now that ebola is a threat to the West drugs will be developed to combat it.
Quite likely - there was no money in such development whilst Ebola was limited to Africa. Now, however...........
We give a lot of money to African nations in the form of foreign aid. It would be great if they took some responsibility and started developing drugs and cures themselves to combat Ebola.
What's your ideal solution then? We can't send billions and billions to Africa forever. It's not sustainable.
Get a ****ing grip. How is that political? It's relevant to the subject of Ebola outbreaks in Africa.
We and the Europeans and Americans have very advanced drug companies, with massive research programs. To start from scratch (as African countries would need to) would be a pretty impossible undertaking. http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...-new-drugs-is-shaping-the-future-of-medicine/ I don't have the answer - but it would appear that only producing drugs to combat diseases/viruses IF THERE IS A PROFIT TO BE MADE is not the answer. [EDIT: and that isn't political, either.]
I agree. Saving lives should be the priority with regards to cures and new drugs, and not profits for pharmaceutical companies. My point is that some of the foreign aid should be used in African nations to build an infrastructure for drug companies (amongst other things) to prevent Ebola outbreaks from occuring in the future.
One possible development might be for the Drug Companies to establish research centres in Africa, involving and training scientific staff? Research could tap into Aid money and would also be more able to react to mutations in viruses, more rapidly.
The problem is that drug companies need profits in order to continue to develop new drugs, they also have shareholders.....they are in it for profit, not the good of humanity The only way what you would like to see happen would be if a drug company were to be government owned/financed
Who would pay for that ? You need the infrastructure & education first & then to find a company willing to do this through altruism, and that's never going to happen. There are branches of drug companies in places like India, but they tend to be producing older established products & generics rather than investing in R&D You cannot simply train scientific staff, they mostly require degrees & when they have them they will want to work in the West where the wages are higher
