December 10, 2014
Blurb
The news that Time magazine has named responders to the Ebola crisis as their "Person of the Year" casts an overdue light on an underutilized strength in the battle: individuals who have been infected and survived.
Indeed, such survivors -- several of whom were featured by Time -- may be uniquely situated to be leaders in the ongoing response, since they might retain antibodies that protect them from subsequent infection with a similar strain of Ebola.
Survivors of Ebola are thus, in effect, perhaps the only people in the world who have been functionally "vaccinated" against the virus. This would give them a critical role to play within the often crowded and desperately poor environments prevailing in West Africa.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-a-smith-phd/times-person-of-the-year-_2_b_6309798.html
Indeed, such survivors -- several of whom were featured by Time -- may be uniquely situated to be leaders in the ongoing response, since they might retain antibodies that protect them from subsequent infection with a similar strain of Ebola.
Survivors of Ebola are thus, in effect, perhaps the only people in the world who have been functionally "vaccinated" against the virus. This would give them a critical role to play within the often crowded and desperately poor environments prevailing in West Africa.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-a-smith-phd/times-person-of-the-year-_2_b_6309798.html