Ignorance Feeding Ebola Outbreak, Says Medical Expert

SAN FRANCISCO - Aug. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- “The number one problem in controlling Ebola and other infectious diseases is ignorance,” declares a former surgeon general of the U.S. Navy. Retired Vice Admiral Adam M. Robinson, Jr., M.D., added, “People in the affected areas need more information, presented in an easily understandable form, to stop the spread of the disease.”

Dr. Gary Selnow, director of WiRED International, a San Francisco-based non-profit health information organization, agrees: “People in remote areas often engage in behaviors that spread illnesses because they don’t know the causes or the steps to take when an infectious disease strikes a loved one. For example, keeping an infected person in the home results in physical contact that often causes an entire family to become infected. So, too, does the tradition of ceremonial washing of bodies or the touching of infected animals.”

World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic recently told the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2014/08/07/people-are-struggling-to-bury-the-ebola-dead-heres-why/) that the body is most contagious when an Ebola victim has just died, noting: “It’s when the virus is overtaking the whole body.”

WiRED responded quickly in early July when the illness first began to spread, delivering its free Ebola health education module in both English and French to grassroots audiences in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia and the Ivory Coast. The modules are interactive learning tools that use simple, straightforward language and appealing infographics to teach the cause, prevention and treatment of an illness. The material is made available through WiRED’s website, and a portable version can be downloaded for use on laptops at http://www.wiredhealthresources.net/mod-ebola.html. In addition, WiRED has teamed up with Caritas International, the global humanitarian arm of the Roman Catholic Church, to distribute the program to health professionals in the field throughout West Africa to further extend the reach of this health initiative.

“Everyone around the world is reading about this crisis, but many people don’t understand what Ebola is, or how it is transmitted, treated or prevented,” according to Dr. Robinson. “WiRED’s training modules can play an important role in filling in the information gap and helping communities help themselves to combat this scourge.” Dr. Robinson is a member of volunteer-driven WiRED’s board of directors as are a number of other medical experts including a former U.S. Surgeon General.

The peer-reviewed Ebola module, as well as over 300 others on a wide variety of diseases, is available to anyone free of charge by accessing WiRED’s Community Health Education e-library at http://www.wiredhealthresources.net. For further information, contact: Gary Selnow, Director, WiRED International, at 650-728-2828 or gary@wiredinternational.org