Foreign aid has saved many lives even yours
I WRITE in support of Steve Roman’s response to J McCulloch’s letter about cancelling foreign aid (Viewpoints, October 26 and 29).
I don’t agree with all of Steve’s points but he makes a fair case for maintaining the foreign aid budget and there is no need for me to expand any further on his wellstated points.
This old chestnut about cancelling foreign aid arises with depressing regularity and, equally depressing, is that the case for cancellation is invariably naive.
May I, in supporting Steve’s already eloquent case for continuing foreign aid, add a further stark statement into the mix? Foreign aid has almost certainly already saved your life.
From time-to-time a lethal pandemic strikes the world population, arguably the most famous being the Influenza epidemic of 1919 that killed millions of people all over the globe.
One such deadly pandemic is Ebola, for which there is no known cure and which is invariably fatal. There was a massive outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014, but there have been further outbreaks since and it is currently spreading through Nigeria and into Uganda.
Half of Ebola cases are unidentified, but three carriers of the disease were known to have flown to other destinations in 2014 (one to Texas, one to Spain and one to Scotland). Fortunately the three carriers were quickly identified and isolated before they could spread the disease.
In 2014 American intervention managed to contain the disease in Guinea and Liberia, while British foreign aid intervention did the same in Sierra Leone.
Ebola is every bit as deadly – as the Black Death which wiped out one third of the population of the then known World in the 14th century.
An Ebola infected person landing at an airport and travelling into a city could decimate the population and spread other carriers all over the World.
Foreign aid is continuing to contribute towards containing the disease but the situation is already dire. On July 17, 2019, the World Health Organisation declared that the Ebola outbreaks represent a Global Health Emergency.
I have already stated that foreign aid has almost certainly already saved your life. In order that it can continue to protect us from this, and other, pandemics foreign aid must continue. To do otherwise would be short sighted, destructive and utterly stupid. G Britland, Stockport