Misinformation has come to define the Ebola outbreak, at least in North America, where there have only been 3 confirmed cases, as opposed to West Africa where more than 13,000 are infected.
Tonight, the Washington Global Health Alliance and CodeMed are joining forces to present factual information on the Ebola outbreak to a Seattle audience.
Tonight’s panel in Town Hall will feature Scott Lindquist, a Washington State Epidemiologist for Communicable Disease; Joe DiCarlo, Vice President of Programs, Medical Teams International; Ann Marie Kimball, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Washington and Karin Huster, Consultant – Health in Emergencies Last Mile Health – Liberia.
Countries including Australia and Canada are suspending visas for residents and travelers from West African countries with Ebola outbreaks.
“I am most interested in keeping our collective eyes on vanquishing the epidemic in the three countries,” Kimball, one of tonight’s panelists, said. “Not this peripheral stuff that is making it harder to get health workers in and out of these countries.”
The peripheral stuff Kimball mentions includes visa suspensions as well as airport quarantines, which she says have been more political than scientific.
“This is supposed to be very science-based, but it has been more about politics than science and I think that is destructive,” Kimball said. “You can’t have quarantine regulations based on politics and not science. History has proven that.”
Jennifer McCausland, founder of CodeMed, one of the co-sponsors of tonight’s panel, says a wide variety of topics will be discussed all under the umbrella of Ebola, but the goal of the night is to provide good public information.
“We want to define for everyone what is the reality of this disease and how you can and cannot contract it,” McCausland said. “We will talk about where it started and why and what we are doing in this state to manage it.
Contagion: Ebola Facts and Fiction
6:30PM, Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Town Hall, Seattle
