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Address: What You Need To Know About Ebola
October 18, 2014
Today, I want to take a few
minutes to speak with you-directly and clearly-about Ebola: what we’re doing
about it, and what you need to know.
Because meeting a public health challenge like this isn’t just a job for
government. All of us-citizens, leaders,
the media-have a responsibility and a role to play. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give
in to hysteria or fear-because that only makes it harder to get people the
accurate information they need. We have
to be guided by the science. We have to
remember the basic facts.
First, what we’re seeing now is
not an “outbreak” or an “epidemic” of Ebola in America. We’re a nation of more than 300 million
people. To date, we’ve seen three cases
of Ebola diagnosed here–the man who contracted the disease in Liberia, came
here and sadly died; the two courageous nurses who were infected while they
were treating him. Our thoughts and our
prayers are with them, and we’re doing everything we can to give them the best
care possible. Now, even one infection
is too many. At the same time, we have
to keep this in perspective. As our
public health experts point out, every year thousands of Americans die from the
flu.
Second, Ebola is actually a
difficult disease to catch. It’s not
transmitted through the air like the flu.
You cannot get it from just riding on a plane or a bus. The only way that a person can contract the
disease is by coming into direct contact with the bodily fluids of somebody who
is already showing symptoms. I’ve met
and hugged some of the doctors and nurses who’ve treated Ebola patients. I’ve met with an Ebola patient who recovered,
right in the Oval Office. And I’m fine.
Third, we know how to fight this
disease. We know the protocols. And we know that when they’re followed, they
work. So far, five Americans who got
infected with Ebola in West Africa have been brought back to the United
States-and all five have been treated safely, without infecting healthcare workers.
And this week, at my direction,
we’re stepping up our efforts.
Additional CDC personnel are on the scene in Dallas and Cleveland. We’re working quickly to track and monitor
anyone who may have been in close contact with someone showing symptoms. We’re sharing lessons learned so other
hospitals don’t repeat the mistakes that happened in Dallas. The CDC’s new Ebola rapid response teams will
deploy quickly to help hospitals implement the right protocols. New screening measures are now in place at airports
that receive nearly all passengers arriving from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra
Leone. And we’ll continue to constantly
review our measures, and update them as needed, to make sure we’re doing
everything we can to keep Americans safe.
Finally, we can’t just cut
ourselves off from West Africa, where this disease is raging. Our medical experts tell us that the best way
to stop this disease is to stop it at its source-before it spreads even wider
and becomes even more difficult to contain.
Trying to seal off an entire region of the world-if that were even
possible-could actually make the situation worse. It would make it harder to move health
workers and supplies back and forth.
Experience shows that it could also cause people in the affected region to
change their travel, to evade screening, and make the disease even harder to
track.
So the United States will
continue to help lead the global response in West Africa. Because if we want to protect Americans from
Ebola here at home, we have to end it over there. And as our civilian and military personnel
serve in the region, their safety and health will remain a top priority.
As I’ve said before, fighting this disease will take time. Before this is over, we may see more isolated cases here in America. But we know how to wage this fight. And if we take the steps that are necessary, if we’re guided by the science-the facts, not fear-then I am absolutely confident that we can prevent a serious outbreak here in the United States, and we can continue to lead the world in this urgent effort. |
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