WHY is Obama spending billions bombing ISIS...but only millions blitzing Ebola virus?

I’m always sceptical when I hear scare-mongering claims about diseases.

From bird flu to SARS, we’re repeatedly told it’s going to be the new Plague that will wipe everyone out and then…it doesn’t. Probably because the scare-mongering itself makes people take it seriously enough to prevent it spreading.

But there is something very sinister and frightening about this Ebola outbreak, which has so far infected 7,100 and killed 3,300.

Consider the words of Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota: ‘It’s the single greatest concern I’ve had in my 40-year public health career,’ he told CNN, talking about the risk of this Ebola virus mutating into an airborne disease that could be transmitted by a cough or sneeze.

‘I can’t imagine anything – and this includes HIV – that would be more devastating to the world than a respiratory transmissible Ebola virus.’

What is the chance of this Armageddon scenario happening?

But the reality is that countries like Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone desperately need a lot more U.S. boots on the ground for military/logistical/ humanitarian/medical aid – and the fastest, most efficient way to get them there is by air.

Ebola must be fought and shut down where it is raging hardest, to prevent the unthinkable happening of the virus mutating from non-airborne to airborne.

The U.S. Government is currently spending billions bombing ISIS with drones to little apparent effect, yet spending only millions blitzing what could be the greatest threat to mankind in my lifetime.

This seems a perverse sense of priorities to me.

America, as so often, has the experience, money and resource to make the biggest difference in tackling this disease.

It’s vitally in its own national interest to do so.