Doing Today's Work Superbly Well — Treating Ebola with Current Tools

It's possible to save many patients who have Ebola virus disease, since supportive care is also specific care for EVD and in all likelihood reduces mortality. Yet many patients in West Africa continue to die for lack of the opportunity to receive such basic care. The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging West Africa is a daily staple of the lay press and of scholarly medical publications. Ebola evokes fear among both the public and clinicians. It also evokes a sort of therapeutic nihilism — after all, if there is no treatment, what can be done? And without an Ebola-specific antiviral medication, of what use are infectious-disease clinicians? Without oxygen, let alone mechanical ventilators, how can acute and critical care clinicians possibly contribute? We have traveled several times to West Africa and done primary patient care in treatment centers and hospitals in Guinea (Conakry and Guéckédou), . . .