Small Rise in New Cases Shows Ebola Hanging On

Haley Barr                                                                                                                    February 7, 2015

Chemistry E/F odd                                                                                                              Mr. Ippolito

Gladstone, Rick. "Small Rise in New Cases Shows Ebola Hanging On." The New York Times 5 Feb. 2015: n. pag. Print.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/world/africa/small-rise-in-new-cases-shows-ebola-hanging-on.html?ref=science>

      The article “Small Rise in New Cases Shows Ebola Hanging On” is about the first weekly rise in new Ebola cases in 2015. This is the opposite from the downward trend in cases of the disease that was previously reported. For the week of February 1st, 124 new cases of Ebola were confirmed. 39 were in Guinea, five were in Liberia, and 80 were in Sierra Leone. Even though this only seems like a small increase from the 99 new cases the week before, it has caused worry among people such as Dr. Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization special representative on Ebola, and Dr. David Nabarro, the United Nations special envoy on Ebola. At a news conference in Geneva, they said that some of the new cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone were people not on lists of patients monitored for possible infection. These lists are a vital part of the strategy to eradicate the disease. Dr. Nabarro said, “Good progress is being made, but the outbreak still presents a grave threat. We have to work really hard to get what we call zero- zero—zero cases, zero transmissions.” Dr. Aylward stressed that new cases were also in people who had moved far from where they were originally infected, which presented another complication on tracking all of the people they might have infected. He said, “Not only are we seeing slight increases in the virus but also seeing these long- distance movements, which are a challenge.” With Ebola cases currently on a small rise, the virus “has told us this week, loud and clear, ‘I am not going away the way you’re expecting me to.’ ”

            I chose this article because I thought that the Ebola outbreak was mostly contained and cases were slowing, but seeing that the number of cases was rising interested me. With Ebola on the rise, the disease directly and indirectly affects much of humanity. The disease has ravaged West African nations, especially Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and has left many sick. With the amount of people who have contracted the disease increasing, it is getting harder and harder to trace all of the cases, and therefore the amount of people infected could keep rising. As Dr. Nabarro said, “the outbreak still presents a grave threat.” The issue of Ebola affects me and many other families not living in an Ebola zone because there is something we can do to help. Dr. Nabarro also said that an additional $1 billion dollars is needed to stop Ebola by midyear. I would like to donate to stop the disease and I am sure many others do too.

            I thought this article was very well written and informative. I liked how the author brought in quotes from experts Nabarro and Aylward. I also liked all of the statistics and numbers that the author included in the article, such as how many new cases were reported in the past two weeks and how much money will be needed to stop the disease by midyear. The article was very easy to understand, and I didn’t have many problems with the article at all. The one thing the author didn’t include was a lot of background information on Ebola. I would have liked just a bit more on trends and patterns of the disease besides those from just the past two weeks. Overall, though, I enjoyed reading this article, and I, too, am now worried about the rise in Ebola cases.