Ebola: The Upshot of Liberia's Western Aid Curse

When an Ebola-afflicted man collapsed in Nigeria's Lagos airport, Nigerian authorities didn't call the Western aid

EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection / Foter / CC BY-ND

hotline demanding mulah and manpower. They hunkered down and took aggressive steps to prevent the contagion from spreading.

By contrast, Liberia started holding press conferences and calling Western aid organizations when it belatedly detected the disease. The outcome? Ebola is raging through this sad, sad country, attacking over 300 people last week alone.

What's the difference between Liberia and Nigeria? Liberia is among the most indebted nations in Africa, I note in my column at The Week, and Nigeria is the least. It's capital Monrovia is crawling with NGOs and the U.N. is already spending $500 million to maintain a peacekeeping force. In other words, as one African writer pointed out: "The virus has managed to escape from a country that has one of the largest concentration of 'helpers' in the world."

 With Western aid like this, do developing countries really need drones and bombs?

Go here to read the whole thing.

Comments

[Free Society]

Basically all tax-derived aid sent to Africa is not only a waste but actually a detriment to the recipients whose markets are suppressed and whose corrupt governments are rewarded.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Lies.

Where would have Haiti been if we didn't send Nepalese UN Peacekeepers to shit in their drinking water and infect them with cholera?

[Brandon]

...Probably in the same place. Shitting in the drinking water didn't move the fucking island. Although more of the people on it would probably still be, like, alive, and stuff.

[Idle Hands]

I know some people who worked for the FDA and were in charge of seeing grain go to African countries for aid, and said the ship wouldn't even hit the dock before the local gov. has sold the grain to another country like india or elsewhere. Most grain shipments wouldn't even get off the dock.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Moolah, the term is "moolah" as in "The Fabulous".

In other news, Nina Pham is now healthy.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Just out of curiosity; why do the Press publish, and the American citizens know the names of Ebola patients? I thought there was HIPAA.

[Brandon]

The press are not subject to HIPAA restraints.

[MegaloMonocle]

More importantly, the government isn't subject to HIPAA. The CDC is free to publish your name as an Ebola patient.

[Tonio]

Also, cops. Remember when that mendacious piece of shit Dunphy was bragging about how he intimidated a pharmacist into revealing confidential patient data? No risk for the constable, since he's not subject to HIPAA; but possible career-ender for the pharmacist.

Fuck you Dunphy, wherever you are.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I don't know about Vinson, but I think Pham might have willingly waived her privacy rights by making those youtube videos for the hospital and all.

I still haven't come across a news article that names Vinson's fiance, for example.

[Brandon]

In other news, Nina Pham is now healthy.

Time for a cruise!

[Mike M.]

Whoa whoa whoa, hold one just one second: Nigeria "hunkered down" and "took aggressive steps to prevent the contagion from spreading"?

Fascinating. I'm very curious about this: exactly what does "hunkered down" mean in this context, and precisely what "aggressive steps to prevent the contagion from spreading" did they take?

Because I have a funny feeling they may be the sort of "aggressive steps" that Dipshit Dalmia would go fucking ballistic over if the U.S. or other western countries took themselves.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Forget it, Mike. It's Shikhatown.

[Brandon]

Fuck off, Mike, you racist fucking troll.

[Mike M.]

When you can't answer the question, you throw out the race card. Yep, typical.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

I really wish this Ebola outbreak had happened in a lily-white country.

[Bardas Phocas]

Nigeria doesn't have travel restrictions - just "aggressive" screening.

They also used "aggressive" quarantine and "aggressive" monitoring of contacts.
http://www.latimes.com/world/a.....story.html

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

+1 Politics and the English Language

[Mike M.]

According to that article, Nigeria's air carrier ended all flights with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

So their government didn't have to impose travel restrictions on those countries since the airline basically did it for them.

[WTF]

According to that article, Nigeria's air carrier ended all flights with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

So their government didn't have to impose travel restrictions on those countries since the airline basically did it for them.

Unpossible, 'Tony' tells us all the experts say that will make it spread even worse!

[Tonio]

Not sure how it is in Nigeria but in many smaller and poorer countries the national-flag carrier is a de facto part of the government.

[Tony]

That's quite a stretch, and the most evil thing I've read so far today. Who'da thought Dalmia would be the one to get that prize.

The problem is that Liberia is extremely poor and simply unequipped to handle this crisis, which is not the case with Nigeria. There are probably two possible outcomes here: the epidemic in Liberia continues onto catastrophe, or Western aid helps them end the epidemic.

It's one thing to prescribe bootsrap pulling to poor people, it's quite another to do it to poor people currently suffering from hemorrhagic disease.

[BuSab Agent]

Hmmm didn't actually read the whole article? I'm shocked,shocked I tell you!

So what should America and the West do?

For the moment, they have no choice but to put in place the infrastructure that Liberia's predatory rulers have neglected. This means erecting treatment centers, training health-care workers, and handing out protective gear.

But once the disease is under control, America should leave quickly and start weaning Liberia off its teat. Like Ebola, excessive aid corrodes the body politic from the inside by breeding unaccountable rulers and undermining governance.

[T]

Reading comprehension isn't his strong suit, BuSab.

[BuSab Agent]

Does he even have a strong suit?