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Zombies... Akon in a bubble... the Ebola outbreak has been riddled with misinformation, and though the situation is very serious, rolling news stations like CNN and Fox News aren't helping by trying to contextualise the pandemic with comparisons to other disasters.

Is Ebola the MH370 of diseases? The Isis of infections? The Voldermort of viruses? These are the types of questions being blasted across the bottom of the screen in capital letters during discussion segments this week, most of the time drowning the interviewee expert's answer that "No, no it isn't."

"Does that mean that it is that deadly, that dangerous or just that it needs to be treated with the same kind of strategy?" CNN's Ashleigh Banfield asked yesterday.

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The chances are if a highly effective Ebola treatment is discovered it won't be by relentlessly bombing the virus, making stern public addresses or winning over the hearts and minds of endothelial cells.

Putting Ebola and IS into the same bracket doesn't help the sufferers either, making them seem somehow evil by juxtaposition.

Over on Fox News the coverage wasn't any less sensational, with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asking: "Why are we still letting people into the country who could have possibly been exposed? Why not just shut down the flights and secure the borders?

"That really doesn't make any sense," a medical doctor curtly responded.

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'The Isis of biological agents?': CNN is asking the stupid Ebola

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Zombies... Akon in a bubble... the Ebola outbreak has been riddled with misinformation, and though the situation is very serious, rolling news stations like CNN and Fox News aren't helping by trying to contextualise the pandemic with comparisons to other disasters.

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El fundador y jefe histórico del Frente Nacional, Jean-Marie Le Pen, ha afirmado que los problema de inmigración de Francia se resolverán "en tres meses" debido a la acción letal del Ébola. El político, de 85 años, hizo esta aseveración antes de ceder la palabra a su hija, Marie Le Pen, la actual líder del partido de extrema derecha, en un mitín en Marsella.

"Hay una explosión demográfica en el mundo y existe el riesgo de invasión. El reemplazo de la población está de camino". En cualquier caso, "el señor Ébola puede solucionar el problema en tres meses", aseguró.

Sus referencias al "torrente migratorio" a punto de invadir Francia y sobre el Islam, "la religión conquistadora", han incomodado a algunos.

Estas declaraciones han sido tachadas de "inaceptables" por el portavoz del gobierno socialista francés. Mientras, en Estrasburgo, algunos diputados han planteado la posibilidad de quitar la inmunidad parlamentaria a Jean -Marie Le Pen.

"De ninguna manera quiero que el virus del Ébola se extienda", matizaba Le Pen, tratando restar hierro al asunto.

El brote de Ébola comenzó a principios de año en Guinea que con 168 casos se enfrenta a una epidemia de esta enfermedad que se caracteriza por fiebre hemorrágica. En este país se han producido 108 muertes, aunque de momento sólo se han confirmado que 71 casos se deben al virus del Ébola, según el último informe divulgado este lunes por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). El virus ya se ha extendido a Liberia, donde se confirmaron seis casos en 26 pacientes, y Sierra Leona, donde ya se ha contabilizado 2 muertes.

No sabemos si Le Pen ha dicho esto pretendiendo hacer "humor negro" (y nunca mejor dicho), o si lo decía en serio. Y en ambos casos sería una auténtica "pasada" por su parte. Lo que sí se podría añadir es que lo que eufemísticamente llaman "salud sexual y reproductiva" elimina muchos más potenciales seres humanos de este planeta que todas las epidemias de ébola juntas, pero ya ven, mientras lo uno es considerado (y con razón) como "racista", lo segundo es presentado como supuestamente "progresista".

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Jean-Marie Le Pen: 'El Ébola puede solucionar el problema de la inmigración en tres meses'

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El fundador y jefe histórico del Frente Nacional, Jean-Marie Le Pen, ha afirmado que los problema de inmigración de Francia se resolverán "en tres meses" debido a la acción letal del Ébola. El político, de 85 años, hizo esta aseveración antes de ceder la palabra a su hija, Marie Le Pen, la actual líder del partido de extrema derecha, en un mitín en Marsella.

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Alexander Garza, associate dean of public health practice and associate professor of epidemiology and emergency medicine at St. Louis University College of Public Health and Social Justice, was assistant secretary and chief medical officer of the Department of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013.

Systems to reduce the risk of infectious disease being imported into the United States are already in place. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has trained workers in the countries where Ebola is endemic to screen for the virus and take temperatures of passengers before they can get on an airplane. Customs and Border Patrol agents have been instructed on the signs and symptoms so they can report any arriving passengers who may be infected to the C.D.C. quarantine officer.

But the response to Ebola needs to be more intensive.

Either more needs to be spent to increase the number of screeners and to make their work more rigorous, or workers need to be shifted.

Because of disease's incubation period, an infected person may not be symptomatic until they get on a plane or even after they get off the plane, so more diligence is needed.

And this is no ordinary communicable disease. It is the ISIS of biological agents. The response should mirror antiterrorism efforts.

More screening workers need to be put in airports outside of West Africa. At U.S. airports, people who have come from West Africa should be more actively screened for symptoms and questioned more closely about their possible contact with Ebola.

Flight manifests should be scrubbed for travelers coming from infected areas. This would allow a concentrated secondary screening by trained quarantine officers regardless of whether a passenger exhibited signs and symptoms of Ebola. Questions should include questions about any close contact with a person infected with Ebola and what area of the country they lived in or came from, since the disease is much more prevalent in some areas than others.

Assuming that the patient in Dallas would have answered this question truthfully, he would have been quarantined. Persons denying contact would then be again evaluated for any signs of infection such as a fever and finally customs and border officers could collect contact information for their stay in the United States, including where they were eventually going to stay. This could help local public health officials know where these travelers are in the community and give a heightened sense of awareness.

This could likely require a doubling of the Global Migration and Quarantine office's budget until this disease is under control. And help from other agencies would also be needed.

The military can easily convert artillerymen into infantry if they're needed to fit the fight. It's more challenging for an agency like the C.D.C. to rally a surge of health combatants. But it needs to be done to combat the disease as a whole government effort.

Staff from all agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services can be retooled. And there are health agencies within all of departments that could contribute people to work at screening individuals at the airports within West Africa.

We need to face this disease threat as we have done with other dangerous threats.

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Much More Vigorous Government Response to Ebola Is Needed

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Alexander Garza, associate dean of public health practice and associate professor of epidemiology and emergency medicine at St. Louis University College of Public Health and Social Justice, was assistant secretary and chief medical officer of the Department of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013.

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Después de los últimos tuits del presidente Trump, ya no quedan dudas: sus crecientes diatribas contra los inmigrantes indocumentados no tienen mucho que ver con inmigración, sino con explotar las ansiedades raciales de gente preocupada por el hecho de que Estados Unidos está dejando de ser un país de mayoría blanca.