On September 18th, 2014, the UN Security Council called an “emergency meeting,” to garner support for the “emergency UN mission” to combat Ebola. This is only the second time in UN history that a public health crisis has been deemed such a threat to the international system, second only to HIV. The UN has called on its member states to raise $1billion in aid money, and for states to resist isolation, and instead join together to curb the spread of this disease. A record number of 130 states signed this resolution, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to loan the three countries most affected- Sierra Leon, Liberia, and Guinea- $ 127 million to boost their health care infrastructure (ironic because of the austerity measures, no?). The US has also pledged to send troops into West Africa to help increase health care standards, and Congress is reviewing a bill for $500 million to fight Ebola. A solid basis of international governmental support has been established for a epidemic that has infected 5,000 people and killed 2,500 since March.
A problem with this American and UN response to containing Ebola is its lack of contextual understanding. Thus far, the most tangible security risk in regards to Ebola is that of the health care workers in the three states most affected by Ebola. Yesterday, 8 healthcare workers and journalists were killed and 21 injured in southeastern Guinea after attempted to educate a village about the spread of Ebola and how to avoid it. Within this region and many others, the culture of western biomedicine is not mainstream. Local variations on folk medicine tend to dominate. The difference between what is being proliferated by international health-based NGOs and government services versus what the local people know and believe to be true about infectious disease is vast, as if the same international healthcare approaches continue being pushed again and again on these communities of people, the containment of Ebola will not be a peaceful one. This is regardless of how much money is pushed into the hands of the international and government-based health care workers.
To exemplify current local attitudes toward Ebola, the BBC reports that some people in Guinea believe Ebola to be a tool white people are using to kill black people. There is great suspicion of the outsiders who come to take Ebola patients away, as many of these ‘outsiders’ have encouraged local people to abandon with their age-old traditions, as these are spreading the disease among villages. The lack of cultural context had lead to riots and increased hostility and resistance to aid workers, as reported by Doctors Without Borders. Health workers have begun fleeing their posts due to threats of violence as well as fear of contracting the disease, as the health care infrastructure is so poor in these West African countries. It has been argued that this distrust of the West will only increase when the US troops arrive, as they will bring with them connotations of further control or potential violence.
It is a deeper understanding of the cultural, social, and historical context surrounding medicine and disease-based beliefs in the different areas within Western Africa that is needed to reduce Ebola’s threat of becoming an international security issue. Thus far, the international community’s western-based response to this epidemic has increased resistance, hostility, and violence among the infected populations they are trying to reach. Practical measures such as better and quicker evaluations of NGO public health initiatives in foreign countries or greater transparency of funds and resources as the UN prepares to roll out its “emergency plan,” should be encouraged, rather than a flood of financial stimulus into countries with serious structural inequity.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29262968
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/17/6334943/why-is-the-military-being-sent-to-attack-ebola-virus/in/5712456
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81406643/
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81384979/