Liberian Rubber Farm Becomes Sanctuary Against Ebola As Ebola exploded in Liberia this year, a rubber farm embarked on a crash course on how to tame an epidemic that has killed thousands of people and derailed governments across West Africa. One morning in March, when the first case arrived at the Liberian unit of Japan’s Bridgestone 5108.TO -1.43%, managers sat around a rubber-tree table and googled “Ebola,” said Ed Garcia, president of Firestone Natural Rubber Company. Then they built two Ebola isolation clinics, using shipping containers and plastic wrap. They trained their janitors how to bury Ebola corpses. Their agricultural surveyors mapped the virus as it spread house to house, and teachers at the company’s schools went door-to-door to explain the disease. “It was like flying an airplane and reading the manual at the same time,” said Philippines-born Mr. Garcia, who runs this 185-square-mile stretch of rubber trees. Six months later, Firestone has turned the tide of infections, offering a sanctuary of health in a country where cases are doubling every three weeks. More In Ebola Its Not Ebola Sapping Nigerian Economy, but Boko Haram Ebola Could Cause ‘Economic Collapse’ Guinea’s President Warns IMF Expands Lending for Ebola-Hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone Ebola Premium Drives Surge in Cocoa Prices IMF In Talks with African Nations to Expand Bailouts On Ebola Crisis Ebola’s broader threat was illustrated on Monday, when a Spanish medical worker tested positive for Ebola after treating an Africa-based missionary who had been infected with the virus and flown to Madrid, officials said. It was the first suspected transmission outside West Africa. The virus could flare again at Firestone. But as of last week, not a single known infection was left among the company’s 8,500 employees and their 71,500 dependents. The company’s Ebola clinic, which boasts amenities such as ceiling fans, was empty last Wednesday. The head doctor, Lyndon Mabande, expressed relief that his staff didn’t risk being infected by a mistaken needle prick. An hour’s drive from here, in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, clinics are packed, and scores are dying daily. The difference isn’t that Firestone applied any breakthrough tactics in fighting a virus first identified four decades ago, health experts and company officials said. It is that the rubber company had the money, manpower, and organization to tackle an epidemic that several sovereign West African governments found bewildering. More than 3,400 people have died in West Africa, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization. Many times that number have died at home, infecting their families without entering a clinic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Every hour, five people in Sierra Leone are infected, said British charity Save The Children last week. While the viral infection has exposed how weak health care in West Africa is, it has also revealed a widening gulf between the facilities of these governments and the resource companies on which they depend. A 14-year-long war left both this nation and the Firestone rubber farm in ruins. A decade later, it is Firestone that has rebuilt. The contagion has escalated beyond what West African governments can manage. Troops and medics from the U.S. and U.K.—even tiny Cuba—have arrived to help build and staff clinics. The Ebola epidemic is edging toward the borders of Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Ivory Coast, said health experts, another trio of countries recovering from civil wars. Ebola is now in every county of Liberia. It is also just across the river from the Firestone farm, as the company’s president illustrated by dragging a laser pointer along a map. “There are villages here that are getting wiped out,” Mr. Garcia said.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 19:50:47 +0000
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