Committee: World Health Organization
Topic: Ebola
Country: Peru
Delegate: Ruby Jazwinski, Forest Hills Northern
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is an incredibly infectious disease that can be transmitted very easily through contact with bodily fluids. It is a fatal disease that has no specific cure. There are different prevention methods, but no way of curing the disease once infected. The majority of the cases happen in Africa and have become more frequent in this past decade. More recently, there has been an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the second-largest Ebola epidemic. Vaccines are under development and are being sent to infected areas. In previous outbreaks, the response of WHO was to maintain surveillance on all cases of Ebola and to watch and control the known outbreaks.
Although Peru has never experienced an outbreak of Ebola, there have been other disease epidemics such as Oropouche and Zinka. These were handled by providing medical care to individuals and investigating the disease and background. Proper medical care and education on the conditions are vital to prevent further spreading and to support ones with the disease. Watching over countries that have had cases of the disease is another way to obviate Ebola and keeping track of the cases and where they are and where they are traveling. Universal health care programs could be used to help the outbreaks.
These outbreaks can be defeated through the efforts of others. Isolating the virus and stopping it from spreading would be the first step, followed by methods of preventing the occurrence of another outbreak.
- Ruby Jazwinski
