Ebola Virus: Movie Analysis

The movie did an excellent job on displaying how society responds to an emerging threat, in this case being the outbreak of an unknown virus, now known as HIV. The movie shows how when the break out of HIV first arose, the media and the CDC portrayed AIDS as solely being a virus that was transmitted among the homosexual community via sexual intercourse, so the straight community had no interest in the problem. As a result, heterosexual individuals were failing to see the emerging health threat from a sociological standpoint on how it reflected the society at large. Rather, heterosexuals viewed the outbreak of HIV as a personal problem that only affected the sexually active homosexual community. Consequently, the straight community began to discriminate homosexuals in a variety of ways,

In contrast, giving the example of when the Ebola outbreak first arose people were very concerned with how the virus was transmitted, the signs and symptoms, the etiology, how it could be prevented and how it could be treated. However, just as when the HIV outbreak occurred, society also responded with fear because we were unsure of how this virus was transmitted, so as a result health care professionals began to take action by placing infected patients in isolation and wearing protective equipment to prevent the outbreak from spreading. In addition, as opposed to back then, many more countries are making advances in educating and involving themselves in preventing the spread of Ebola. Also, as a whole we’re responding to Ebola as a global health community rather than individuals by providing the public with accurate evidence and information regarding the virus in order to combat