An editorial just out in the British Medical Journal points out, correctly, that airport screening for Ebola is nothing but a "false sense of reassurance" and that a "[b]etter use of...resources [from countries able to help] would be to immediately scale-up..presence in West Africa" by, for example, building and staffing treatment centres. It is stunning that this rather obvious point would be missed by governments in countries like Canada and the U.S., where airport screening has been implemented, and by many news media outlets, who seem obsessed with discussing everything (Ebola in the West!; airport screening; experimental drugs, vaccines) but a concerted "boots on the ground" approach to helping affected countries in West Africa. As the article points out, Canada seems to have learned nothing from SARS screening - our government spent $17million to screen for SARS at entry points into Canada, but not one case was found. Seems like "Nothing works like failed policies" should be new our public/global health slogan.
Meanwhile, the graphic below shows that Canada's financial contribution to the Ebola problem is much less than Mark Zuckerberg's. Perhaps we can use some of the screening money to boost our presence on the ground?
