The Ebola Crisis has caused over 4,400 deaths. The World Health Organization believes there could be up to 10,000 new cases each week within two months, unless efforts to prevent the spread of Ebola are greatly magnified. Although most of the victims of Ebola are located in West Africa, the virus is spreading around the world.
Foreign aid in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea is essential to mitigating the damage caused by this potential world pandemic. This aid would help the residents of highly impacted nations as well as other nations around the globe. This aid can be classified as a public good. Noone can be excluded from the benefits of lower risk of infection. Furthermore, one person's consumption of being protected from Ebola does not decrease another person's protection from Ebola.
The question is, who will provide the necessary aid to fight Ebola? I believe that the free rider problem is resulting in less foreign aid to countries affected the most. Further international cooperation through the United Nations may be necessary to solve this issue. This is because the benefits of preventing a worldwide pandemic likely exceed the cost of sending aid. Preventative measures, even in everyday healthcare, are often underprovided due to the free rider problem.
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