The spread of Ebola in west Africa is deeply troubling for the region and the world
Economist.com
Aug 16th 2014
IN EASTERN Sierra Leone the roads are unusually quiet. Checkpoints manned by heavily armed soldiers have blocked all movement to and from the districts of Kailahun and Kenema. The main road to Freetown, the capital, is travelled by just a few motorbikes and cars carrying supplies. In Kenema, a usually heaving taxi rank is all but deserted; its cabs have nowhere to go.
Ebola has hit this region hard, and not just because of the deaths it has caused. The federal government’s quarantines have taken their own toll. Businesses are suffering and villagers have complained of shortages. But, even after having declared a state of emergency, the government’s precautions are patchy. At the public hospital in Kenema, which treats Ebola patients, visitors pass in and out as they like. There are few safeguards to prevent them from catching and spreading the disease.
It has been more than nine months since Ebola claimed a two-year-old boy in a village in Guinea—“patient zero” in the current outbreak. But rather than petering out, the virus seems to be ramping up. It has infected nearly 2,000 people in west Africa. Over 1,000 of them have died, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). That is probably an underestimate. Some families, distrustful of outsiders and authorities, are concealing sick relatives. Unlike previous outbreaks, this one has travelled to cities, including crowded Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, which could become a transmission hotspot. On August 8th, for only the third time, the WHO declared a “public health emergency of international concern”.
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