Ebola demonstrates the critical link between health and human rights, the lack of governance, and the misdirection that befalls the international community in addressing such outbreaks. Human rights experts agree that the Ebola response falls into Lawrence Gostin’s paradigm whereby “the perception persists that disease threats originate in the global South, requiring international law to prevent their spread to affluent regions.”
In the case of Ebola, it becomes painfully clear that such perceptions apply given that six months separated the Centers for Disease Control’s recognition of the outbreak in March and the call for international mobilization by President Obama in mid-September.
