No Victory, Yet: Now Over 3,000 Cases In DRC -- And Over 2,000 Dead -- From Ebola This Time Around.

As bad as Dorian is going to turn out to be, it will never even remotely approach the already experienced loss of life, in the Congo -- from "the [viral Ebola] fire, this time around". We should bear that in mind, always. . . we have nearly limitless resources available, to deal with Dorian -- while the day by day carnage continues to mount -- in resource-starved central Africa.

And so, as I make my way back to points east, I'll re-post this link, to a story from Ed Silverman's team at STAT.

The possibility of a cure is promising, but victory lies out on the far horizon, with funding / budgets, local social and cultural customs, and sheer logistical challenges. . . all working as counter-rotating inertia-generating engines -- against any near term eradication, in the DRC. Here's a bit:

. . . .[T]o declare victory against the virus would be to overlook fundamental truths about outbreaks. In some circumstances at least — and the current long-running outbreak is one — Ebola will not be vanquished by vaccines and drugs alone.

“I think the news today is fantastic. It gives us a tool in our toolbox against Ebola. But it doesn’t in itself stop Ebola,” Dr. Mike Ryan, who runs the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, told reporters earlier this week, sounding somewhat subdued, as health officials announced that for the first time a clinical trial had shown an Ebola treatment was helping people survive the virus. . . .

“What will stop Ebola is. . . good surveillance, good infection prevention and control, good community engagement, excellent vaccination and the use of these therapeutics in the most effective way possible, in safe and humane Ebola treatment units. It’s not one answer. It’s many things. . . .”

And it indeed. . . is. Many things. Do offer the Universe a meditation, to create safe energy, for the people in the path of Dorian right now. [It is encouraging, I suppose, that over 900 people have survived their brush with Ebola, in the DRC -- while the death toll from Dorian will almost certainly be under one-tenth (or maybe one-twentieth) of that figure.] And. . . a river runs through it -- cut by the world's great flood. . . onward -- with hope.

नमस्ते