Republic of Guinea is beginning rollout of Kallo’s RuralCare and MobileCare this quarter. MobileCare is effectively integrated technology and diagnostic equipment, all delivered by trailer-truck to remote locations. MobileCare clinics include an aseptic room and a command center that can be linked to a teaching hospital via satellite, all essentially bringing the hospital to the patient. Kallo’s RuralCare consists of pre-fabricated modular clinics installed with the latest surgical, lab, and pharmacy medical equipment. All of this is the beginning of the $200 million supply contract signed with the Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene with the Republic of Guinea.
This should help Guinea reshape a healthcare system that currently is very poorly structured and severely underfunded. The current outbreak of the Ebola virus in Guinea is a clear example of just what a disaster healthcare is in Guinea and countries similar to Guinea as it could have been easily preventable.
There is no cure or vaccine for the disease, and the symptoms are horrifying. They begin with a severe headache which turns into a fever, body pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Then for reasons not fully understood, all the blood vessels in one’s body begin to leak, and this hemorrhaging typically leads to death. Matter of fact, Ebola is typically fatal for 90% of those that contract the disease. The disease is believed to be hosted in a species of fruit bat which is eaten and potentially that is how the disease is spread, or by butchering an animal with the disease. Human to human direct contact further spreads the disease by contacting a bodily fluid. Pretty much the only way to treat the disease is to quarantine the people that have it, and after a period of time, the bulk of the people die, the disease then apparently appears to burn itself out, and one sanitizes as much as possible the quarantined area. The disease is frightening but it simply sickens and kills too quickly to become a threat on some global scale. One certainly need not fear the disease spreading to the United States.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ebola outbreaks occur “primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests. There have been at least 25 Ebola virus outbreaks in Africa since 1976 with the last in 2012 in Uganda. Doctors without Borders successfully fought the disease and handed over an Ebola treatment center they set up to the Ugandan government. As Doctors without Borders left Uganda, they made it quite clear that they felt the Ugandan government and their Ministry of Health staff now properly trained can manage and handle any future outbreak of Ebola virus. So why haven’t neighboring governments been similarly prepared to prevent and act quickly when an Ebola outbreak occurs? A matter of weeks ago, Guinea’s Ministry of Health assured that the current outbreak was contained after over 60 people died from the infection. Now the death toll has pushed to 136 with 208 reported cases, and it spread to the neighboring country of Liberia resulting in 34 cases and 6 cases so for in that nation. As a result, the borders between the two countries have been closed and all airports have strict medical checks.
Some have been critical of Doctors without Borders for not having the foresight to implement training programs in other African countries to counter future outbreaks of Ebola. Doctors without Borders is essentially an NGO or non-government organization which if you glance over their annual report, primarily gets all of its funding from Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs. With the exception of cases regarding self-interests, Wall Street rarely looks beyond short-term events, so it probably should not be a surprise that Doctors without Borders only focuses when a bad emergency occurs, and in those cases they do quite exceptional work. However, counting on Western agencies and NGOs to protect the health of the global population consistently proves to be a mistake.
There is plenty of talk about the development of a vaccine and there were a few biotechnology companies that were working on an Ebola virus vaccine which was being funded by the Pentagon, and for which the budget was cut under sequestration. As there is no profit to be derived distributing a vaccine to poverty stricken populations, there is little expectation of such a vaccine ever being derived. However, a vaccine won’t solve the underlying problem of constant failure due to practically no healthcare infrastructure.
The bottom line is that the African nations must begin taking responsibility themselves for dealing with outbreaks. All of this demonstrates that the Republic of Guinea badly needs to develop a functioning healthcare infrastructure and engaging Kallo is a correct step in that direction.
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