Star Africa
Dr Raj Panjabi, a co-founder of the Liberia-based NGO Last Mile Health, appealed on Saturday in the Moroccan city of Marrakech for the establishment of a Marshall Plan against the Ebola outbreak. “The battle against the Ebola virus has remained challenging. It is as if there were only eight doctors to tackle the virus. That is why I am urging for a Marshall Plan to eradicate the epidemics”, Dr Panjabi continued.
He was co-chairing a panel of the Ebola virus as part of the 3rd edition of the Atlantic Dialogue Forum which kicked off on 24 October in Marrakech.
According to Dr Panjabi an anti-Ebola Marshall Plan is not difficult to put in place but it requires the mobilization of many doctors and nurses.
“The deadly virus is a global threat and the cost of inaction is much higher than that of action,” the health expert warned.
As for Paul Farmer, a medical teacher of Harvard University in the United States, if Liberia and Sierra Leone are vulnerable to Ebola it is due to the investment gap in the health sector in the wake of the civil wars the two countries experienced.
Nearly 4,900 deaths have been recorded across West Africa since the Ebola was first detected in Guinea in March, according to the World Health Organization.
