From the Washington Post:
With Ebola’s death toll surging and a top United Nations official declaring that “the rate of acceleration is now picking up dramatically,” Liberian officials have been making dire pronouncements about the deepening crisis in their country.
At a news conference Thursday, finance minister Amara Konneh said Liberia is at “war with an enemy we don’t see.” Two days earlier, the Ebola-ravaged country’s defense minister, Brownie Samukai, delivered a harrowing warning of his own.
“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence,” Samukai told the U.N. Security Council. “The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our state.”
Ebola, he added, “is now spreading like wildfire, devouring everything in its path. The already weak health infrastructure of the country has been overwhelmed.”
Although the minister’s assertion was unusual in its severity, the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has indeed created a dire situation for the current government of Liberia. But is it truly a serious threat to the the country’s existence?
The U.N. special envoy to Liberia, Karin Landgren, seems to agree with Samukai, at least to an extent. Landgren told the U.N. Security Council this week that “Liberians are facing their gravest threat since war,” referring to two civil wars between 1989 and 2003 that left more than 250,000 dead. Those bloody conflicts completely destabilized the country, and Liberia was still recovering when the current Ebola outbreak began.
Landgren warned the Security Council “that the Ebola crisis has become complex, with political, security, economic and social implications that will continue to affect the country well beyond the current medical emergency,”according to Global Post.
Poor bastards. Vaccination now appears the best (and only) hope.
