What makes the latest Ebola outbreak different from the previous ones? The answer is ease of travel.
In a new US university study, traveling, along with international trade, is considered as one of the most efficient couriers of infectious diseases as sick people with communicable illnesses can board a plane while unsuspectingly spreading the virus among the co-passengers and residents of their destination.
The research was created by a team from the University of Arizona including Charles Perrings, a university professor for environmental economics. It was presented in a British-organized conference and was earlier published in Food Security.
In its presentation, the group cited the recent Ebola epidemic that killed more than 8,000 people, mostly from West African countries such as Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. However, a man from Liberia, Thomas Eric Duncan, became patient zero in the United States.
Duncan was visiting his family in Texas when he showed symptoms of the viral disease and was brought to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where two of his attending nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, later contracted the same disease. While Duncan died, Pham and Vinson eventually recovered.
The risks of Ebola spread through air travel had prompted many airports around the globe to conduct screenings among passengers coming from disease hot spots and perform immediate isolation for those who they believed to be showing symptoms like low-grade fever upon arrival.
The same paper also pointed out that international trade could increase infectious diseases particularly among plants and animals. Perrings mentioned about the hoof and mouth disease that cost the UK government more than $8 billion during the height of the outbreak and the African swine fever coming from traded pork and its derivatives. Some diseases such as avian flu are also zoonotic, which means they can be passed on from animals to humans.
To resolve the issue, Perrings recommended addressing it at the source and confronting the importers and exporters with the degree of risks associated with both travel and international trade.