Western countries are ready to allocate billions of euros to fight the virus zika. It’s time to think about the plight of the billion spent two years ago to fight the Ebola virus.
It was recently, it was a long time ago. In the summer of 2014, the Director General of the world health organization (who) Margaret Chan (Margaret Chan) of the Scarecrow world “catastrophic consequences”, prepared by the world Ebola. Then intimidated the Western countries to fight the virus has allocated about 4 billion euros, half of which without superfluous discussions unfastened the European Union. However, by the end of 2014, it became clear that the main factor in the spread of fever – social. In October of the same year, we warned our readers: “In Europe, strongly creates the image of a new enemy, which, however, is not dangerous to man, obey the basic rules of hygiene and do not have continuous and intensive contact with people and animals infected with this virus and cannot eat carrion”. According to the results officially ended in 2015 “global epidemic” in Europe from Ebola is not dead, not a single person outside of the source of fever in West Africa died of an infected one.
A year and a half ago, we suggested that the resources allocated to the fight against Ebola billions are nothing else than the maintenance of authoritarian regimes in West Africa. Not going to argue that dictators have done everything possible to obtain for their own benefit to vimerit as many people as possible, but the statistics are startling. In Guinea, where initially, the epidemiological situation was significantly better than in the other two affected by the virus countries, the death rate from Ebola was 20 percent higher than in neighboring Liberia. In that time, as the authoritarian leader of Guinea alpha Conde (Alpha Condé) was called for his people to pray, and from the world community required of all new trenches, the more democratic President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Selif (Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) was begging people to wash their hands before eating.
Last year American Humanosphere is an independent organization involved in the collection and analysis of information of Western aid to the poorest countries, said that they are unable to track where and on what was spent “abolinya” billions, the lion’s share of which disappeared in the budgets of the three African countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. As an example, the experts cited 100 million euros to these countries directly allocated to Germany (note that much more money our country has allocated the common European framework of assistance). It would seem that German money will go for specific purposes, but data on their use could not be found. In the report, the organization stresses: money spent in secrecy, it seems, was not at all clear what they are. Influential representatives of the American organization ONE Campaign, which among other things collects charity for African countries, then warned: “If we don’t have accountability and mechanisms for financial security, we will be doomed to repeat old mistakes, loss of time, resources and lives.”
Unfortunately, the situation around the zika virus, against which there are no medicines and vaccines, says that no one wants to learn from old mistakes. On January 21 the European centre for disease prevention and control of diseases published a brochure whose purpose was apparently to reassure the public: the virus is not so dangerous, and in Europe its distribution is practically impossible. However, when on 1 February, the who announced that Zeke is a global danger, joined officials of the European Commission, which immediately distinguished at the beginning of the struggle with the virus to 10 million euros.
Of course, the sum is small, yet the press release emphasizes that this is only the first step. Mainly, it is planned to examine the Association of the virus with microcephaly, a birth defect in children. Previously received information about the outbreak of microcephaly in the Brazilian provinces, where, as expected, and previously the virus was raging Zeke. It was argued that the level of disease has increased several dozen times. But it is only a suspicion of microcephaly, diagnosis of which in the country was changed a few months ago. The number of confirmed cases remains at the level of previous years. Anyway, according to experts, evidence will have to wait at least 9 months, when the first children born from mothers with a confirmed diagnosis.
In turn, the White house asked the U.S. Congress to allocate to fight the virus 1.8 billion, as the epidemic is on the same continent.
Despite the fact that at the moment the world community is concerned about the spread of the virus in Latin America, “an interest” in trying to attract and African countries, which previously recorded its distribution centers. Officially in Africa, besides the island state of Cape Verde, had not yet been registered cases of infection. However, the feature of virus is that often the resulting disease is almost asymptomatic. So, the Ministry of health of Rwanda, a country that the level of inadequacy of the authorities is that competes with Zimbabwe, have established a working group for monitoring the spread of the virus. Suddenly, for the disbursement of funds, something will be found.
In conclusion, the extract from the official report by the who: “a Disease caused by zika virus, usually is mild and does not require specific treatment. People infected with zika virus, need plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids and take regular medications to manage pain and fever. With worsening symptoms should seek medical help and advice. Currently, a vaccine against this disease does not exist.”
