Why Ebola victims may flee for care

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says that authorities need to make sure people infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa countries don’t feel like they have received a “death sentence” when quarantined.

“If you tell patients, ‘We’re going to isolate you… we’re going to make sure you don’t infect anyone else.’ Well, if you think going into isolation is basically a death sentence then unfortunately, the incentive is to go somewhere where it’s not,” Kim said Friday at a forum in Washington hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

{mosads}Global health officials have been grappling with the Ebola virus outbreak, which has had a significant impact in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. World Health Organization officials have said there have been about 10,000 reported cases at present.

Kim urged global officials to invest in infrastructure in such a way as to strengthen health systems that are in place to combat Ebola and other deadly viruses that can originate in developing nations.

“It’s the countries that don’t have those [adequate health] systems that are the accelerator” to viruses like Ebola, he said.

“What we’re trying to do is argue that we have to put in place in these countries an extremely high-level of care so the incentive for people in those countries is to stay where they are,” Kim said. “If you know that survival is much better elsewhere, the incentive is to leave.”

Officials announced the fourth reported U.S. case of Ebola on Thursday. New York City doctor Craig Spencer contracted the disease with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, officials said.