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Halting Flights to Ebola Regions Could Threaten Relief Efforts, Experts Warn

4 minute read

You can book to travel on British Airways (BA) from London Heathrow to Roberts International airport in Monrovia, but the direct flight will take nine hours—and at least 25 weeks—to arrive in the Liberian capital.

In August BA suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone, citing public health concerns amid the spread of ebola in the region. Now, the U.K. carrier has announced its decision to maintain that suspension through the end of March 2015. BA isn’t alone; there are now so few airlines flying into the area that key workers are being forced onto wait lists and lengthy journeys with multiple stopovers. Right now, European travelers hoping to get to Monrovia or Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown must squeeze on to services operated by Brussels Airlines and Royal Air Maroc, or thumb a ride on a military jet.

Nobody would dispute the wisdom of taking the threat of Ebola very, very seriously, but aid agencies warn that a shortage of transportation to and from west Africa, far from containing Ebola, instead risks undermining efforts to quell the epidemic.

At an Oct. 8 Washington press conference with U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for the international community to “step up” efforts against Ebola and stressed the importance of keeping air routes open. It is a point Justin Forsyth, CEO of the U.K.-based charity Save the Children, also emphasizes.

“The main way to defeat the spread of Ebola not just in the region but globally is to get it under control in Sierra Leone and Liberia and Guinea and the best way of getting it under control is to make sure that we can get health workers into the region because they’re not going to have enough capability in these countries themselves,” says Forsyth, whose charity is working with the British military to establish a treatment center in Sierra Leone, as well as setting up care centers in Liberia and training thousands of health workers. “They’re going to need a lot of people coming in, and not all of it by military [flights].”

See The Tobacco Leaves That Could Cure Ebola

An worker inspects the Nicotiana benthamiana plants at Medicago greenhouse in Quebec City
Tobacco plants are grown for six weeks in the Medicago greenhouse in Quebec City so their leaves are large enough to serve as a factory for making antibodies. The plants are not modified or genetically altered in any way during this time.Mathieu Belanger—Reuters
Icon Genetics Provides Technology For Possible Ebola Treatment
Researchers at Icon Genetics in Germany prepare the DNA coding for antibodies that can neutralize Ebola. These genes are inserted into a soil bacterium that easily infects the tobacco plant cells. Once in the cells, the gene is treated like any other plant gene and the plant starts churning out the antibodies.Sean Gallup—Getty Images
Nicotiana benthamiana plants are dipped in a solution during the infiltration process at Medicago greenhouse in Quebec City
To infect the leaves with the antibody-containing bacteria, the plants are submerged in a water solution of the loaded bacteria. Plant cells have plenty of empty spaces filled with air, so a vacuum removes the air and the water, along with the bacteria and antibody genes, flow in.Mathieu Belanger—Reuters
An worker shows the difference between the leaf of the Nicotiana benthamiana plant before (top) and after (botom) the infiltration process at Medicago greenhouse in Quebec City
The leaf at the bottom has not been treated. The leaf on top is now an antibody-making factory. The plant's normal machinery starts making the antibody as if it is a plant protein.Mathieu Belanger—Reuters
Icon Genetics Provides Technology For Possible Ebola Treatment
Researchers at Icon Genetics grind the leaves down to filter out the antibodies.Sean Gallup—Getty Images
Icon Genetics Provides Technology For Possible Ebola Treatment
Ultraviolet light reveals the clusters of cells that are busy making antibodies. One kg of leaves produces about 5g of antibodies, which is about a third of the dose required to treat an Ebola patient.Sean Gallup—Getty Images

There have been fresh calls to isolate the disease by further isolating west Africa, after Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan died on Oct. 8 in Dallas, and Spain awaits news of Teresa Romero Ramos, the first person to contract Ebola outside west Africa in this outbreak. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had already advocated banning all flights from the region. “We need to protect our people,” he said last week.

On the surface it makes sense. Ebola may not be airborne, but authorities’ assurances that sitting on a plane with an infected person shouldn’t pose a big risk ring increasingly hollow, as Spanish health authorities try to figure out how Ramos caught the disease. She wore protective clothing and followed hospital protocols, though she has said she may have touched her face with a contaminated glove.

Yet in the view of many experts, following the impulse to isolationism is already making countries beyond Africa more vulnerable, not less. Christopher Stokes, director of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Brussels, told the Guardian “Airlines have shut down many flights and the unintended consequence has been to slow and hamper the relief effort, paradoxically increasing the risk of this epidemic spreading across countries in west Africa first, then potentially elsewhere. We have to stop Ebola at source and this means we have to be able to go there.”

Save the Children’s Forsyth agrees. He recognizes the concerns of airline staff, though, and says “It’s a big decision by anybody to go to work in one of these countries at the moment. We’ve got lots of people stepping forward to do it but it’s not an easy decision.”

The only option, Forsyth believes, is for governments to take the lead. “We need the airline industry to come together. This is where governments have a big role to play, to bring airlines together,” he says. “The other way to do it is to set up an air bridge paid for by governments or the military.”

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