Why the Epidemic? Why then are we confronted with an Ebola epidemic in regions of West Africa? The answer lies not in the pathology of the disease but in the pathology of our society and the global political and economic architecture. It is not an accident that the present Ebola epidemic has affected three of the poorest countries in the world. Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone number 175, 179 and 183, respectively, out of 187 countries on the United Nation’s Human Development Index. Their health systems are ineffective and almost non-existent in many regions. The present epidemic is an epidemic brought upon by poverty, which in turn is a consequence of the kind of extreme inequity that is fostered by the present capitalist system. The entire world’s gaze is on these three countries, yet its not just Ebola that is killing people here. Let us take the case of Sierra Leone. Since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak, 848 people have been infected by the virus and 365 people have died. In four months Sierra Leone sees around 650 deaths from meningitis, 670 from tuberculosis, 790 from HIV/AIDS, 845 from diarrhoeal diseases, and more than 3,000 from malaria. These deaths have been occurring for decades, not just in the last four months. Yet global attention was not focused on these countries. For, to do so, would force the rich and the powerful – global leaders, the capitalist press, the institutions of capitalism, the captains of industry, UN agencies – to confront the reality of Africa. Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are not poor by choice. They did not choose not to build functioning health systems. Centuries of colonial rule left them poor. Imperialist agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF heaped further misery through their infamous structural adjustment programmes. They were instructed not to increase public spending on welfare and public services by these agencies. The WTO promised them the moon in the name of trade liberalisation, and further devastated their economies. The developed capitalist countries send in aid as charity and repatriate back much more through their corporations. These poor countries also subsidise the health systems of rich countries – more doctors born in Liberia and Sierra Leone work in OECD countries than in their home countries. Health worker migration – which is nothing short of a direct subsidy that the poor countries of the world provide to the rich – makes it impossible for West Africa to build credible health systems. newsclick.in/international/ebola-epidemic-exposes-pathology-capitalist-system
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 00:23:05 +0000
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