what's worse than ebola? smoke

Africa is a daunting place, a place where most westerners don't dare to visit without a pharmaceutical arsenal of anti-malarials, antibiotics and anti-diarrheal tablets. Now, thanks to ebola, they don’t dare visit at all. [worse than ebola]

What makes the current ebola epidemic especially devastating is that it's just one more debilitating setback in a region plagued by HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child mortality, and a plethora of other contributors to poverty in Africa.

As we're preparing to move our family to Africa, one of the most frequently asked questions right now is if we aren't worried about the ebola outbreak? So we did a little research. Our home base in Iringa is over 7000km or 100hrs driving time from the epicenter of the ebola epidemic (double the distance from our current home to the nearest case of ebola in Dallas, TX).

We also came across an interesting diagram of the leading causes of death in Africa [VOX]. Having lived in Africa, we would have identified the top killers as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and cholera. We're not far out, but interestingly, respiratory infections is the leading cause of death after HIV/AIDS.

Including illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, a major contributor to respiratory deaths in Africa is household air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls it "the forgotten 3 billion" who still cook and heat their homes using solid fuels (wood, crop wastes, charcoal, dung). [WHO] Smoke is the silent killer in Africa. Can fuel efficient stoves make a difference?