Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Infectious Disease - INR 4008
Infectious Disease - INR 4008
Brenna Callahan
Abstract
Amidst the tide of globalization, increased social interactions between various cultural
sectors have allowed viruses that were once relatively contained to sweep through global
populations. Among these viruses, HIV and Ebola pose the largest risk to the populations of
developing states. With no treatment, Ebolas virology has the potential to put the health of entire
communities at risk rapidly. However the fiscal development of HIV treatment and prevention by
developed states in the third world has left the general medical infrastructure of developing
nations severely lacking, resulting in few qualified doctors and a high mortality rate that
Virology
Ebola and HIV have a high risk of transmission, passing easily between human hosts by
direct contact. Ebola is highly infectious, sweeping through gorilla families, villages, and entire
medical facilities alike by way of bodily fluid contact. Patients become infected with Ebola virus
via direct contact (contact through broken skin or mucous membranes) with an ill persons blood
or body fluids, objects such as needles that have been contaminated, contact with infected bats or
primates, and through sexual contact with an individual who has recovered from Ebola (CDC
2015). HIV infects its patients nearly identically, moving from one host to the other via anal or
Infectious Disease in the Developing World
vaginal sex, shared needles, and contact of bodily fluids, and less commonly; from mother to
child during pregnancy or breastfeeding (CDC 2016). Unlike Ebola, which has no treatment,
anti-retroviral drugs (ARVS) have been developed for HIV to seriously curb the spread of the
disease in its host, limiting the virus from developing into the deadly AIDs virus. With no known
treatment, high rate of infection, and a fatality rate of 65%-70% (Quammen 2012, 63), Ebola
appears to pose a higher risk to the developing world over the next 20 years than HIV.
Infrastructure Failures
Medical technicalities such as treatment, risk of exposure, and the mortality rate of Ebola
aside, the investment in HIV related health infrastructure has created an unbalanced public health
system in developing nations. As a result of this unbalance, developing nations are unable to
lower their mortality rate and invest in educating technical professionals such as doctors;
creating an economic stagnation amidst nations highly effected with HIV. In its onslaught on
global populations in 1970, the HIV virus exploded within media and health sectors, and in 2001
an estimated $20 billion was needed annually to formally combat the spread of the virus (Garrett
2007). Since then fiscal assistance for HIV/AIDS prevention has surpassed the estimated request,
largely in part from heavy investment from organizations and governments such as that of the
Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bush administration, who gave $6.6 billion and $27.5 billion
away respectively to global health programs (Garrett 2007). This dedicated effort to slow the
spread of HIV/AIDS has sponsored targeted success stories among populations with high rates of
HIV infection, such as Botswana. However, this investment means little if other sectors of public
health remain undeveloped. Though Botswanan citizens now face less risk from HIV/AIDS
thanks to the introduction of ARVs, the public sector as a whole is damaged as health care
professionals are taken out of the general sector and moved to NGOs. In Malawi, the government
2
Infectious Disease in the Developing World
lost 85% of its physicians in just 5 years, and international migratory statistics show
professionals from other poor countries are increasingly abandoning their homes for wealthier
nations as well (Garrett 2007). With lack of physicians and health care professionals to take care
of routine illnesses and wellness exams such as vaccines, the populations of these nations who
are deprived proper health care will continue to suffer a high mortality rate despite the alleviation
Future Development
Diseases with high rates of mortality and transmission such as HIV and Ebola pose a high
risk to the economic infrastructure of developing nations. Heavy fiscal influence from outsider
nations into HIV treatment has left developing states with no ability to expand their public health
sectors, driving doctors and medical professionals out and resulting in short life expectancies for
citizens. This unbalance as a result of HIV prevention will continue to threaten the economic
References
CDC. 2015. Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease): Transmission. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. July 22. https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html (February 1
2017).
CDC. 2016. HIV/AIDS: Treatment. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. November
16. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/livingwithhiv/treatment.html (February 4 2017).
Garrett, Laurie. 2007. The Challenge of Global Health. Foreign Affairs 86;1
(January/February):1-17.
Quammen, David. 2012. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc.