Viruses have a way of revealing our weaknesses — individually and collectively. Peter Piot, who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, once said that another virus, HIV, had exposed the fault lines in society. Ebola has done the same.

North Americans only woke up to the Ebola crisis when it became clear that the virus would reach our shores. Physicians like me have known about Ebola for more than 30 years. We’ve known for more than six months about the current crisis in West Africa that has taken the lives of almost 5,000 people. But we paid little attention until the virus was transmitted in one North American city, at which point there was an explosion of interest from the media, from policy-makers and the general public. Now the fear of Ebola is palpable.

At some level, we know that contributions to improve the health of people beyond our borders should be motivated by more than self-preservation. Ill health anywhere is a threat to wellness everywhere. Despite recent efforts to address a dearth of human resources for health, the countries most affected by the Ebola crisis have never known anything but precarious shortages of well-trained health professionals. The health workers who are available are valiantly facing this contagion in a severely underfunded public health system.

There is little to be gained now by beating ourselves up over what good international neighbours should have been doing for the past generation. But let this be a wake-up call for the months ahead: wealthy nations like Canada can and must contribute to the acute crisis in West Africa as well as providing exemplary care if a case is confirmed in Canada.

The doubling of Canada’s current financial commitment with an additional $30 million to the Ebola crisis is a positive development, but a small contribution relative to the tremendous need. We should ensure that this money is spent wisely by co-ordinating closely with the World Health Organization and other multilateral health partners. It is going to take a colossal effort of co-operation to halt the spread of this outbreak.

But our assistance must be more than simply reactive. If we had paid attention to the current crisis six months ago, there is good reason to believe that this disease would have spread more slowly. If we in the West had spent the last decade working with West African and international health partners to build capacity into health systems through public health training, medical education, and infrastructure improvements, then the virus may never have wreaked such havoc.

Canadians have done this kind of work internationally — but not enough. For example, I have been involved in a successful collaboration between the University of Toronto and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia to support post-graduate training for physicians. We need to invest in more programs like this that offer a high return on investment and can have a dramatic impact on health outcomes in less-resourced settings.

In the next six months, international efforts will necessarily focus on treating the ill, halting viral transmission and comforting those who mourn. We will then move into a phase of rebuilding broken health systems. At that point, Canadians should resolve not to lose interest in these countries whose health systems are less well resourced than our own. There are smart, respectful and sustainable ways that Canadians can share knowledge and resources.

The Ebola crisis has caused immeasurable suffering in West Africa. Our common humanity ought to inspire us to pay attention to a health crisis in another part of the globe regardless of how directly it may or may not affect us. Our shared destiny should compel us to help improve health of people well beyond our borders. An ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure — before the next crisis is upon us.

Dr. Jane Philpott worked in West Africa for a decade in the 1990s. She is a family doctor in Markham and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. She is the Liberal Party of Canada’s candidate in Markham-Stouffville.