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Ebola Challenge 

A viral campaign for West Africa is the best U.S. prevention plan

When your mother lives in West Africa, you might spend a night or 20 lying awake, freaking out about Ebola. My mom's living and working at a school in Equatorial Guinea — that's the other Guinea, the one where there hasn't been an outbreak, yet. Still, West Africa is just a little too close for comfort when it comes to your only living parent, your children's abu, your best friend.

When Thomas Eric Duncan died, I Facetimed her and demanded that she come home right away. "Things just got serious, Mom," I said. "A man in the United States just died from Ebola; you have to get out of Africa." Mom calmly replied, "You are suggesting that I leave a country where there hasn't been a single confirmed case of Ebola for one where a man just died from the disease? That doesn't make much sense, honey."

I had been reading news stories about Ebola for several months, but like so many other Americans, it took Duncan dying for me to come to terms with the severity of the disease. I had followed the story of Nancy Writebol, the Charlotte missionary who recovered from it and, in my head, rationalized that here, in the U.S., our fancy hospitals and sophisticated equipment could combat it. When Duncan died in a state-of-the-art hospital in Dallas, I finally had a visceral reaction to the thousands dying in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. It dawned on me, "This thing is for real."

I wasn't the only one. Worldwide Google searches for Ebola spiked dramatically right around Sept. 30, when Duncan was diagnosed, and then again around Oct. 8, when he passed away. Twitter also blew up on those same days with #ebola tweets. By that point, nearly 3,000 Africans had already died from the disease.

News outlets had been covering the outbreak for months, but the real panic didn't set in, at least not domestically, until it hit our own hemisphere. And now that Ebola is the word on every American's lips, we talk about how to contain it here, how to prevent it here, how prepared we are to fight it here. Meanwhile, the death toll in West Africa has exceeded 4,500.

On the other side of the world, thousands of children have been orphaned, hospitals are at capacity and supplies are scarce. The World Health Organization is predicting that new Ebola cases could reach 10,000 a week by December. By the end of January, 1.4 million people in Liberia and Sierra Leone could be infected.

In the U.S., a Winston-Salem pastor is blaming Ebola on the gays, the outbreak has become a major political issue, and there are hazmat suit Halloween costumes available for purchase. All I can say to that is, "Dear first world, please stop embarrassing yourself."

Unfortunately, the hysteria around Ebola has not translated into donations from Americans to fight the disease. Compared to U.S. donations during natural disasters like the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines, contributions to organizations working to control the spread of the virus have been much slower. Experts believe it's because folks are confused about who to donate to and the disease is just too unprecedented.

The viral outpouring of financial support for victims of tsunamis and earthquakes of the past just hasn't happened for the victims of Ebola in West Africa. Instead, people in America are infected with a ridiculous fear of catching a disease that can only be contracted through contact with bodily fluids and that only a handful of people in the entire country are confirmed to have. The news media isn't doing anything to stop the frenzy. Headlines spreading panic abound and social media platforms are teeming with conspiracy theories.

The thing is, if we really want to prevent Ebola from spreading in the U.S. our best bet is to put all of our efforts and resources into treating the disease in West Africa. Even if we do it for completely selfish reasons, West Africa needs our full attention.

I'd still like for my mother to come home (also for completely selfish reasons). If, God forbid, Ebola spreads to Equatorial Guinea, the consequences will probably be much more dire than in the U.S. All of my attempts at convincing her have failed, however. She has a school to run, teachers to encourage, children to hug and kiss. And, inadvertently, a daughter thousands of miles away to teach lessons to.

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