The Pandemic Playbook
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DRC Ebola Outbreak 2019 Blog 1 Introduction
1. INTRODUCTION
There are two intertwined wars in the DRC’s northeastern provinces. The primary war involving the DRC is a regional battle, waged for several decades, against dozens of local militias over mineral and political rights in the eastern provinces of the nation. The second war is one of humanity against one of the great killer microbes, Ebola virus. From late July 2018 to July 2019, 12 months, the DRC has been fighting this war in the northeastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. A lagging international response to this growing Ebola virus outbreak has created the conditions for an Ebola virus pandemic. This essay presents a brief history of the current situation in the DRC, why this Ebola virus outbreak is a global threat and why it is crucial to act immediately to halt the militia violence and curb this epidemic.
EIDs are also known as pathogens of pandemic potential and include Ebola virus, other types of microbes and larger parasites (1-2). Pandemics are disease outbreaks that have expanded to involve at least several nations or continents, while epidemics are outbreaks that have temporarily expanded to overrun a particular region. In this article, the term pandemic refers to diseases that have high death rates while survivors often suffer from related chronic illnesses. Epidemics, or outbreaks, are temporary regionally enlarged areas or where an increased number of infected people with a specific infectious disease are located. Each EID has a smaller regionally constrained endemic area, its home range, where over millennia ecological checks and balances have kept it from escaping its niche. When humans enter these environmental niches or distort the local ecology, they expose themselves to EIDs through hunting EID-infected animals or handling or taking EID-infected animals out of the region, exposing other humans and animals to these parasites. The term spillover is used when EIDs escape from endemic zones and migrate to other areas. Infectious diseases that are initially transmitted from animals to humans are called zoonotic infections or zoonoses. Within the last 20 years, EID outbreaks have become far more common (3-5).
Disease experts warned us for over 50 years that EIDs would become long term global biosecurity threats (6-8). A new type of warfare is coming whose tools are not battalions, aircraft fleets, warships, proxy wars, nuclear arsenals or even cyber warfare. EID outbreaks morphing into pandemics can kill far more people than traditional wars in a shorter time. This essay is a case study of the new complex environments in which EIDs occur. It details several biological factors that permit EID outbreak expansion and several of humanity’s weaknesses that will be exploited to aid EID expansion. So far humanity has not understood that EID epidemics can exterminate our species within months, either directly or by obliterating our food sources. The following report should win over some skeptics in this debate across the globe and political spectrum (3, 9).
Copyright © 2019 Na’eem A. Abdullah All Rights Reserved
Morning fog on the African river Sangha. Congo. Sergey Uryadnikov Photographer/ Shutterstock Photos.
Many emerging infectious diseases originate in tropical ecosystems. See About Page - Sangha River.
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