We Can’t Rely on Just the Military
In September 2014, as the deadly Ebola virus overwhelmed West Africa, the Obama administration felt compelled to intervene. The Pentagon spent $360 million to send 3,000 troops to the region and tasked them with building 17 100-bed treatment centers. Ultimately, only 11 centers were constructed, and only 28 Ebola patients were treated at them. Nine of those centers never even saw patients. By contrast, the international medical NGO Doctors Without Borders treated more than 5,000 Ebola patients, or a third of total confirmed cases, at a cost of roughly $100 million, or less than a third of what the Pentagon spent.
The difference was that the Obama administration’s efforts didn’t kick in until after the outbreak had already peaked. The first center opened in mid-November, by which point new cases were steadily declining. Doctors Without Borders, meanwhile, first responded to the crisis in March 2014.
The armed forces have certainly their share of public-health successes, from Walter Reed’s about yellow fever to the military’s on an Ebola vaccine. But the sluggish
