in Guinea , Sierra Leone , Liberia , and now Nigeria and
Senegal has turned west Africa into a battleground between
the promise of globalisation and its terrors.
An instance of the promise is a remarkable study published
in Science Magazine by four dozens medical professionals
active in African epidemiology .
Just half a year into the epidemic , they have sequenced 99
Ebola genomes , identified hundreds of mutations , and
discovered the incident that spread the disease across the
border from Guinea into Sierra Leone in late May - the
funeral in Guinea of a faith healer who had treated Ebola
patients , attended by 13 Sierra Leonean women .
An instance of globalisation's terrors can be found in the fact ,
in the three months since that funeral , 5 of the report's
Sierra Leonean co-authors have died .
×××××××××××××
There is no cure for Ebola , a virus that lives in fruit bats and
other mammals , and spreads easily through the exchange
of fluid-blood , sweat , tears , saliva and so on.
There have been two dozens outbreaks since the virus was
first discovered in Congo back in 1976 , but NEVER ONE
LIKE THIS , in which the death toll exceeds that of all previous
episodes combined .
At least 3.500 people have contracted the disease , and half
that number have died .
Patients can take up to 21 days to become symptomatic.
Those with the responsibility of addressing Ebola have
oscillated between urgency and complacency , panic and
cool. The response in Africa has been marked by extaordinary
courage , at least among health professionals .
These are surely the people best prepared to take precautions
against Ebola , and yet hundreds of caregivers have been
infected , 120 of them fatally.
The dangers of managing this crisis are coming to resemble
those at Chernobyl or Fukushima .
Health workers are running through gloves , wraps , body suits
and alcohol-based hand sanitisers at a rapid clip .
Among the broader public , the response is more desperate ,
which is reasonable under the cirumstances .
Patients are avoiding care , figuring that while there may be
Ebola in their blood , there is definetely Ebola in the hospitals .
There have been militarised roadblocks and heavy-handed
attempts to quarantine neighbourhoods with high rates of
infection in Sierra Leone and Liberia , leading to confrontations
and violence . The worst affected countries do not have the
political infrastructure to deal with such a crisis.
Even so , a view of the virus that sounds oddly
Pollyanna-ish has become prevalent in the west.
Ebola is not airborne , doctors stress , nor is it bugborne.
Infected Americans have been brought back home for
medical treatment .
The World Health Organisation has not called for closing
any borders , and has even released a poster reading :
" Travel to and from Ebola-affected countries is low-risk " .
( It is low-risk as long you do not touch anybody who has
developed symptoms or use the same bathroom ) .
Similarly , an online forum in Le Monde stressed that " it is
illusory to think that borders can be airtight ".
Well , sure it is , but might not imperfect borders help a bit ?
It is like telling the Dutch they are fools to build dykes and
levees because no anti-flooding system can keep out every
drop of moisture .
Injunctions not to panic alternate with emergency
proclamations , even in the heart of the same organisation .
Joanne Liu ,president of the French charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres , warned that the world is " losing the battle against
Ebola " . But Rosa Crestani , who lrads the same organisation's
Ebola intervention , said in the forum in Le Monde : With
globalisation , it is impossible to close the borders .
It is not correct and is not recommended by the WHO .
A similar division exists in the private sector.
There are companies that have stopped doing business in the
worst hit African countries , notably major airlines , which
have discontinued flights . But there are also pharmaceutical
working confidently on remedies and screening kits.
GSK is soon to begin trials for a vaccine .
It is good not to go overboard . Still , one has the sense that
the course of treatment is being circumscribed by a reluctance
to say anything that would disrupt the project of globalisation .
That taboo cannot last . Ebola is too frightening .
In Liberia , president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf-a winner of the
Nobel peace prize-has used police to restrict the freedom of
movement of those in afflicted neighbourhoods .
In America , Donald Trump eas applauded in certain circles
for calling on the US to stop all flights from west Africa .
"The US has enough problems ", he wrote.
In the presence of an epidemic ,good manners persist only
until the threat draws sufficiently near...
