I remember being 7. Playing with my friends in a local building site around the corner from my home. There was a massive sand pit, which beckoned to our 7 year old sense’ of adventure. Kids being kids we spent hours playing beaches and sand castles, listlessly wasting away our afternoon without a care in the world and giving our parents much needed rest. We knew to be careful but to have fun. Our parents knew we would always be ok save for the odd scrape here or there. One particular day, when constructing a sand castle society of impressive proportions, I stepped on a nail. Thinking it was nothing more than an impressive war wound, I went upon my merry way. Not long afterwards my leg had become itchy and sore. Without much panic, a short drive to the local medical centre followed with a script of antibiotics to kill the infection. Three or four days later I could barley notice the mark on my foot and I was back on my merry way.

Now imagine a world where the scenario was very different. A world that we as a civilised society outgrew decades ago. A world where a small cut like I received could lead to an untreatable infection. Where a small cut on the foot could very really cost a young child a foot, a leg, or even their life. This is the very realistic scenario that we as a humanity have a very real chance of facing, should we not heed the warnings of medical professionals the world over.

All across West Africa reports continue to circulate which depict apocalyptic type scenarios with death and fear fuelling the afflicted into hiding from society in a type of sordid self quarantine. Vice News show a video of a young man with his sick friend unable to seek any form of assistance from anyone. Being refused from hospital to hospital they are now resigned to the side of the road hoping for a rare ambulance to happen past and come to their aid. His words describe the situation he is in and what his experiences have been. His eyes however reveal the true hopelessness that he obviously feels. The sadness, the sorrow, the look of death, which is a distinctive marker of those who’ve come across the disease. From his eyes emanated the scent of death. Death, along with the young man, look begrudgingly down the barrel of the camera. It is not necessary for a person to have experienced Ebola first hand for it to envelop the senses.

It is very unlikely for the disease to spread in any meaningful form into Western society save for the various isolated cases that will arise. The reason for this is not that the disease behaves differently in different societies, nor due to it targeting certain genetic, it is in fact due to the way most developed countries are equipped to deal with the disease. They have the equipment to adequately diagnose the most appropriate treatment, the ability to administer those treatments and the general infrastructure to curb the spread of the disease.

What if the developed world didn’t have the infrastructure to deal with Ebola? What if the medicine they did have didn’t work? Antibiotic Superbugs are not transmissible, they don’t spread that way. They are bacteria that have, and are continuing to, evolve in large part through the misuse of antibiotics. Without antibiotics a small cut could kill, surgeries become too risky, or as British Prime Minister David Cameron distinctly put it, “If we fail to act, we are looking at an almost unthinkable scenario where antibiotics no longer work and we are cast back into the dark ages of medicine where treatable infections and injuries will kill once again.” This sentiment is mirrored by England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies who said we should be as afraid of antibiotic resistant superbugs as we should be of terrorism because “If we don’t take action, then we may all be back in an almost 19th Century environment where infections kill us as a result of routine operations. We won’t be able to do a lot of our cancer treatments or organ transplants.”

A simple Google search will provide you an enormous list of medical professionals and notables who have continuously echoed the repeated warnings that the misuse of antibiotics could be catastrophic for our society. No more notable than Nobel Prize Winner Alexander Fleming, who was awarded the prize for his role in the discovery of penicillin, when he gave a lecture in 1945 giving a stark warning about the medicines misuse. As the rhetoric continues to flourish around this issue, we continue to see very little incentives for future investment and research into new forms of antibiotics.

If nothing else, perhaps the Ebola crisis will remind western society that despite their collection of expert equipment and personal, if a disease or infection afflicts someone, unless they are able to adequately handle and control it, the disease will not discriminate in its victims. Of which over 23,000 Us citizens lost their lives to in the last 18 months.