While not highly contagious, Ebola is highly deadly once contracted. An estimated 70% of people who get sick with Ebola will die. The current outbreak began in West Africa back in March of 2014 and has since spread through Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. As of October 10 the CDC reports there were 8376 cases resulting in 4024 deaths so far. Again, while not highly contagious, it is spreading and the numbers of sick and dying are growing.
So how can makers help to fight Ebola?
We can help by doing what we do best: solving problems.
Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development is a high-urgency initiative to help healthcare workers at the front lines provide better care and stop the spread of Ebola. The program is made up of two parts: 1) OpenIDEO (an open innovation platform) and 2) the Challenge Grant (a funding platform). The Challenge is a fast-paced effort to make a difference quickly.
OpenIDEO is a natural place for makers to contribute. Here you’ll find background information, research, ideas are being generated and prototyped, and in a few weeks the best ideas will be implemented.
The Challenge Grant is $5,000,000 set aside to fund prototypes.
Click here to learn how the OpenIDEO program works.
Let’s get involved; we can make a difference.
The Challenge has 25 days to go!
0 thoughts on “Makers Against Ebola – Intro”
“While not highly contagious,”
I can think of at least three people who would disagree.
Idahoser, how dare you not tow the official line on this issue! According to the president, you should be comfortable sitting next to an infected ebola patient on a crowded bus. To express concern is just being racist. (or prejudiced against someone with a disability, at the least)
You need to be more sensitive! Afterall, closing the borders, or limiting travel from places where Ebola is epidemic might hurt someone’s feelings.
(end sarcasm) In other news, the World Health Org. is now saying that the incubation period for Ebola may be as long as 42 days. (double the 21 days being espoused by CDC)
I’m pretty sure I could cure it with a little funding, a biophotonics person who can make a good microscope using interference to see the virus and a sound engineer who could create a frequency machine to match its vibrational frequency plus the eleventh harmonic. This should shatter the virus within 5 minutes without even touching the patient. Thus you could install at airports…