During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) developed an application that allowed people to share information on the spread of the contagion, which proved to be very useful to monitor the situation. Now that the Zika virus outbreak is raising concerns, would it be possible to use a similar approach?
Declaring an emergency is a dirty work, but someone has to do it. When facing a serious threat to global public health, even if complete evidence is lacking, someone has to take the responsibility to push the red button that activates a chain of coordinated actions (such as cooperation among states and research of vaccines). Choosing to do this, the risk of giving a false alarm is unavoidable. On the other side, one could decide to wait until something more is known, with the awareness that, in this way, it is possible to act when it is too late.
Quality of life and life expectancy are not the same for all individuals. Dramatic differentials in these traits, as well as in many other health features, represent one of the biggest challenges for our society. Social and economic factors play a major role in determining these differences, as it has been proved that people from higher socio-economic groups are more likely to live longer and in better health conditions.