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Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

The description of the conditions in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone and the over-whelming odds that the doctors there are facing was heartbreaking to read.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is as much a function of poverty as it is of the Ebola Virus. One of these all of us can fight.

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As someone who has spent extensive time in West and Central Africa, poverty is as much a second order (or third or fourth) effect as the Ebola outbreak, and much harder to fight. System fragility (whether it's relative to disease, famine, or other natural disasters), is a function of poor leadership more than anything. What is scary is that there is plenty of evidence that government to government aid does more harm than good, and Western attempts at fixing the problems only make things worse.[1]

[1]See any of Bill Easterly's writing - http://williameasterly.org/

By "poor leadership" did you mean "warlord rulers taking the vast majority of the aid money thrown in their general direction"?

"Warlord" implies a military bent. Many of the worst culprits are bureaucrats - spending most of their time wearing $10,000 suits while being wined and dined by Western leaders and skimming millions into the accounts of their inner circle. Power is not always held by physical force.

I am profoundly moved by the heroism Dr Khan and his nurses showed and the example they've set for future generations of medical professionals. I hope it's publicized when Dr. Khan's family finishes setting up the foundation in his name

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

How? Throwing money at the problem doesn't yield results (as is typically the case). The issues in Africa seem to be fundamental; they are issues of culture, resources, and structure.

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