Could an emergency declaration over Ebola make a bad situation worse?

Stat News "The Ebola outbreak raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where health workers are under attack, is challenging the globe’s capacity to respond. It is also calling into question whether the use of a major weapon intended to address such health crises might be futile in this case.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the North Kivu outbreak hasn’t been declared a public health emergency of international concern — a PHEIC in global health parlance. That fact has frustrated some health security experts, who insist it’s long past time to proclaim an international emergency." (Photo: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

• www.statnews.com