With the Ebola virus “spreading like wildfire” in Liberia,
“devouring everything in its path,” Brownie Samukai, the state’s defense
minister, went on to tell the U.N. Security Council on September 9, 2014 that
“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence.”[1]
With more than half of the epidemic’s deaths in that state—1,224 out of at
least 2,2296 in West Africa as of September 6, 2014—and new cases “increasing
exponentially,” the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that “the demands
of the Ebola outbreak have completely outstripped the government’s and
partners’ capacity to respond.”[2]
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the illness had
severely handicapped the mining, agriculture, and service sectors of the
state’s economy.[3]
Quite understandably, pleas for the government to do more peeled like
frightened bells across the state. “The patients are hungry, they are starving.
No food, no water,” a terrified woman told journalists. “The government needs
to do more. Let Ellen Johnson Sirleaf do more!”[4]
Even if valid, such blame is hypocritical to the extent that the people
themselves had been refusing to do what is necessary to stop such a virus from
spreading.
The entire essay is at “Ebola
in Liberia”
1. Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola
Is ‘Devouring Everything in Its Path.’ Could It Lead to Liberia’s Collapse?”
The Washington Post, September 11,
2014.
2. WTO, “Ebola
Situation in Liberia: Non-Conventional Interventions Needed,” September 8,
2014; Elahe Izadi, “Ebola
Death Toll Rises to 2,296 as Liberia Struggles to Keep Up,” The Washington Post, September 9, 2014.
3. Anna Yukhananov, “IMF
Says Ebola Hits Economic Growth in West Africa,” Reuters, September 11,
2014.
4. Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola.”
