In a relentless
sweep across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the largest outbreak of Ebola –
a virus that causes dramatic internal bleeding and often quick death – has now
claimed 4,960 lives from 13, 268 reported cases since February 2014.
Named after a river
in the DR Congo, the Ebola virus is among the deadliest of any known virus,
with between 70 and 90 percent mortality. At present there is no cure for
Ebola. The global epicenter of this epidemic are three west African countries
of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Ebola virus is
spread through contact with infected fluids. Once an individual is infected,
the virus swiftly attacks internal organs, causes severe bleeding,
vomiting, and dementia. The typical cause of death is multi-organ
system failure.
Accounts of the
disease paint African culture as an obstacle to prevention and epidemic control
efforts, associating Ebola eruption with practices such as burial traditions or
consumption of bushmeat.
The association
between African culture and Ebola amounts to racialization of the epidemic. In
a sense race and culture are instrumentalized as “risk factors” for Ebola
infection. African “otherness” is presented as inimical to enlightened Ebola
control efforts. African immigrants living in Dallas have reported
fewer handshakes and more frequent curious glances
since a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, become the first person
diagnosed with Ebola in the United States of America. But thankfully, nothing
clinically differentiates vulnerability on account of skin color.
Glaringly absent in
the Ebola conversation is what in my view are the larger structural
determinants of the patterns of the epidemic. Globalization of Africa’s
extractive resource sector – mining and forestry, ecology, political and
economic factors offer a more credible explanatory power of the
emergence and proliferation of the Ebola virus.
Guinea, Liberia and
Sierra Leone have one thing in common. They have experienced unprecedented
rates of deforestation. For instance, the rainforest has declined to less than
a fifth of its original size. In Liberia, loggers have decimated half of the
forest. Similarly, Guinea has lost about a quarter of its forest. According
to UNEP, with only 4 percent of forest remaining, Sierra Leone is on track to
be completely deforested by 2018.
Deforestation
creates ideal conditions for vectors to breed and spread diseases.
The association between deforestation and the emergence of
zoonotic, vector-borne diseases is well established.
Deforestation alters ecosystem structure and invariably changes breeding
habitats for disease vectors. Research has shown that deforestation enhances mosquito
reproductive fitness, increasing mosquito population growth potential in the
western Kenya highlands.
Deforestation is known to lead to
increased contact between humans and wildlife. In 2005, researchers from Johns
Hopkins University and the Consortium for Conservation Medicine showed that 75 percent
of infectious diseases, including Ebola, are caused by pathogens, which started
in wildlife and then jumped to humans. Moreover, there is evidence that Ebola
outbreaks in West Africa are strongly associated with deforestation.
The Ebola epicenter in Guinea is
in the south east of Guinea, close to the iron ore reserves in the
forest. Mining has become big business in the region, employing thousands of
workers who make excursions into bat territory to access the mines. More mines in the forest means more
frequent contact between bats and other wildlife. Fruit bats carry the
Ebola virus, but do not die from the virus.
I have argued in
this column that the Ebola virus has and continues to expose Africa’s soft
underbelly. Ebola is not just a medical emergency. National and global efforts
to combat Ebola – build hospitals and enhance medical response capacity –
are supremely well intentioned but miserably reductionist, hence
limited.
At the heart of the
Ebola epidemic is an unfolding environmental catastrophe that is upsetting the
balance of nature and creating a perilous situation where infectious diseases
jump, easily, from animals to humans. At the core of the Ebola crisis is
conflict, corruption and governance incapacity, all of which have eroded the capability
of a majority of African governments to deliver vital social services;
healthcare, education and economic opportunity.
It is not enough to
stop the hemorrhaging. We must tackle the systemic dysfunction, which
underwrites the governance incapacity of African states.
As African scholars
and public intellectuals we have a solemn obligation to re-shape the narrative
on the Ebola emergence and re-contextualize global health policy and action
frameworks taking into account of ecology, poverty, political economy and
globalization.
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