Are We Doing Enough to Stop the Spread of Ebola?

Are We Doing Enough to Stop the Spread of Ebola?

Aryn Baker in an article in Time entitled “Racing Ebola: What the World Needs to do to

Stop the Deadly Virus” says that help isn't coming fast enough for patients suffering in the three

major countries in Africa most severely affected by the recent outbreak; Sierra Leone,Guinea,

and Liberia. Baker, in her article also states that the WHO and the Red Cross have tried to come

in contact with government officials from around the world with little or no effort from the

countries to assist in fighting the spread of Ebola as of the beginning of October 2014. In the

two arguments I have researched the authors provide detailed facts and opinion concerning

whether the Ebola virus was man made or not, and if we're doing enough to stop the spread of

Ebola.

On one hand Jack Challem who wrote the article entitled "Could Widespread Selenium

Deficiency Have Been A Factor In The Ebola Outbreak?.", states that the entire outbreak could

be controlled just by allowing the virus to have unlimited access to the element Selenium, and

with the right amount of aid we could decrease the number of lives the virus will take and

eventually man would be able to control the containment of the virus. E. Will Taylor, Ph.D., and

Chandra Sekar Ramanathan, M.Sc., both are from the Department of Medicinal Chemistry,

University of Georgia. Their research supports the fact that the deadly Ebola virus contains

selenium-dependent genes, their research helps explain why the deadly virus has been able to

mutate and spread so aggressively when it cannot obtain enough of the selenium mineral.

“According to Taylor, the Zaire strain of Ebola virus appears to have several genes that produce

proteins with an exceptionally high content of selenocysteine, a rare selenium-based amino

acid.” Taylor also said that when selenium deficiencies are low the virus reproduces and mutates

in order to search for a new source of selenium, the virus can find its source of selenium

throughout the soil, and often replenishes and comes back with a vengeance. It is with this

research that scientists are helping to try and contain the virus in Africa and confine those who

are infected.

One another hand Leonard G. Horowitz, wrote the article "Ebola: Evidence Shows

They're Man-Made." states that the Ebola virus was made as a form of population control to

slowly decrease the population count in Africa and then recently the virus got out of control and