President Obama got it right about Ebola. Will Australia?

The social and cultural environments also have similarities, that in both cases, have added to the horror of the disease, and to extreme and odd reactions of the affected communities. People shunned the plague victims. The same thing is happening with Ebola. Carers are terrified. People with symptoms hide away, rather than be treated as outcasts. Cultural customs can spread infection - traditional burial practices in West Africa led to more infection. However, now relatives stay away - while strangers in protective gear carry the dead to unmarked graves. It's not unlike the carts that patrolled the medieval streets, with the cry - "Bring out your dead".

Many ended their lives in the streets both at night and during the day; and many others who died in their houses were only known to be dead because the neighbours smelled their decaying bodies. Dead bodies filled every corner.

Such was the multitude of corpses brought to the churches every day and almost every hour that there was not enough consecrated ground to give them burial, especially since they wanted to bury each person in the family grave, according to the old custom. Although the cemeteries were full they were forced to dig huge trenches, where they buried the bodies by hundreds. Here they stowed them away like bales in the hold of a ship and covered them with a little earth, until the whole trench was full. Eyewitness to History

Isolation and stigma was the fate of the medieval plague sufferers . "...Such fear and fanciful notions took possession of the living that almost all of them adopted the same cruel policy, which was entirely to avoid the sick and everything belonging to them" http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm

A common feature of Ebola epidemics is stigma. Sufferers and survivors are often stigmatised by the community, and so too are hospital workers. In past outbreaks, some survivors were not welcomed back into their community, some were unable to find work, and some were abandoned by their partners. In the Ugandan outbreak of 2000/2001, the possessions and homes of some survivors were burned

Religious beliefs played a role in the Black Plague. The disease was seen as a punishment from God. Some people went around whipping themselves - in the hopes that this would prevent the plague punishment.

Others took the lead in persecuting strangers and minorities as well as those unfortunates who were perceived as witches. As though there was not enough death ready at hand, innocent people were slaughtered because somebody had to be blamed. Medieval medicine was not equal to the challenge of preventing or curing the plague, so there was a ready market for magic and superstition.

In some parts of West Africa, there is a belief that simply saying "Ebola" aloud makes the disease appear. Many West Africans see Ebola as a "curse" rather than a medical illness ....As many of the locals believe that Ebola is spiritual, there is widespread scepticism about Western-trained medical professionals. Some believe that doctors are killing Ebola patients once they are taken to the hospital or that Ebola is a punishment for sexual promiscuity

West Africa has been deemed by the UN as one of the poorest areas in the world. Superstitions run rampant in this region, as the old practices of witchcraft, Voodoo, juju and marabou, brought about through old traditions and culture and the practicing native spiritual mediums of the area. Superstitious beliefs and fears run so strongly that the simplest things, such as a spot on the road that has caused an accident will send many scrambling to slaughter sheep and goats to keep the evil ghosts and spirits away......Throughout Africa, especially in the West African region, the majority of residents believe wholeheartedly in witchcraft. Witches are seen as entities that roam the area, having an amazing effect.....The superstitious beliefs of the area solely exist due to the fear that is behind the unknown. If something happens to a family member, is it because of the evil spirits, witches and Voodoo?

The World Health Organisation and Obama have recognised that the prevailing paradigm of free market answers, and 'technical fixes' cannot work to beat the Ebola epidemic.

This epidemic is very different in nature from the other recent epidemics that have been in the news - SARS and influenza. The "developed" world did develop strategies to address those disease threats, and "developed" populations have become fairly comfortable about the effectiveness of those strategies.

The Ebola epidemic does make for a pretty dramatic and scary news story. That's because Ebola is a particularly nasty disease, and because it's spreading very fast in in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, the reality of the Ebola disease is that it is not really much of a threat to rich developed countries. Ebola is not transmitted by air - inhalation, and not by a vector such as the mosquito. Ebola is transmitted by contact with human body secretions. Transmission of any of the five strains of the Ebola virus happens where people live in crowded and insanitary conditions, where hospitals lack infection control, and where infection surveillance is non existent.

So in the relatively clean and sanitary developed world, with its modern hospitals, the Western world need not fear Ebola as much as those other recent potential epidemics.