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What America Must Do To Stop Ebola, Now

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Are we ready for Ebola? The CDC says it will stop Ebola in its tracks in the US. We’ll hear what it’s really going to take.

Dr Tom Kenyon, director of the Center for Disease Control's Center for Global Health, listens to a question at a news conference in Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday Oct. 1, 2014.  (AP)
Dr Tom Kenyon, director of the Center for Disease Control's Center for Global Health, listens to a question at a news conference in Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday Oct. 1, 2014. (AP)

Ebola reports every day now, from West Africa and well beyond.  The Spanish nurse in trouble. An American cameraman being treated in Nebraska.  The first case that walked into an American hospital, Thomas Duncan, dead today, in that hospital in Dallas.  Is America ready for Ebola?  The CDC says we’ll stop it in its tracks.  But 80 percent of American nurses surveyed last week said their hospitals have not taught them about it.  This hour On Point:  America and Ebola.  Are we ready?
-- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Author of "The Coming Plague," "Betrayal of Trust" and "I Heard the Sirens Scream." (@Laurie_Garrett)

Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Health Security. (@AmeshAA)

Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Professor of health policy and management in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. (@IrwinRedlenerMD)

From Tom's Reading List

Foreign Policy: How to Keep Ebola Out of Your Neighborhood -- "In the age of globalization, there is no simple way to bar viral entry across national borders. Flights route through multiple countries; jet-age travel allows incubating viral colonies to thrive inside an asymptomatic human, only emerging days after the person has arrived at his or her destination. Duncan is a case in point: Airport fever tests were administered, but the Liberian citizen had no fever while traveling, nor did he exhibit symptoms for days after arriving in Dallas. "

TIME: Ebola Arrives in America — "It’s a small world, after all, one in which a man boards an airplane in West Africa and hopscotches his way across Europe and North America to land in Dallas the next day. One would never guess by looking at him, but microscopic strands of a virus travel with him, stowaways inside the man’s body. Four days later, he is burning with fever. Next come the vomiting and diarrhea, and like that, Ebola is in America."

Associated Press: Experimental Drug Provided to Dallas Ebola Patient — "Brincidofovir is an antiviral drug being tested against several common viruses, including one that infects patients undergoing bone marrow transplants. Chimerix is working with the U.S. Department of Defense on developing the drug as a treatment against smallpox. Laboratory tests suggested it may also work against Ebola. The company said in a statement it is working with the FDA to finalize plans for an Ebola study of brincidofovir, its lead drug candidate. The company has no other products on the market or in testing."

This program aired on October 8, 2014.

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