As I am not an expert on this subject, what is it about this part of the world that seems to be a hotbed for Ebola and what, if anything, can local governments do to reduce its likelihood of reoccurring?
People eat the reservoir species for these diseases in these areas. Not much local government can do about something that has been done for all of human history. Can't exactly tell a hungry person capable of hunting for themselves to stop hunting for themselves and go without.
It's hard to dismiss a population's drive to eat out of hunger. When its survival is at stake sometimes there is no choice but to hunt and eat what is available. It's hard to choose between animal's survival and your own survival.
Those hotspot areas are notoriously infamous for government coups and instability being commonplace. Even so, if a large percentage of the world population is at risk, then I would hope that friendly regional authorities would have enough forethought and common sense to, at least, find alternative methods of feeding their population, including asking for help.
I totally get that there are places where "authoritarian regimes and dictatorships or fragile and failed states," standby and do nothing, because it is in their interest or corruption is the norm. But even so, being a continuous obstacle, or an indirect cause to a potential world catastrophe, be it natural or man-made while willingly refusing to do something about it, should carry permanent, serious and long-lasting consequences for any government found to be negligent.
Not trying to make lite of this situation, but in cases like these, the needs of the many must truly outweigh the needs of the, corrupt few.
Thank you for letting me in!
Sol Roth
PS:
Hope you like the décor. I’m redecorating your thoughts permanently.
> what is it about this part of the world that seems to be a hotbed for Ebola
Utter poverty. No money for wastewater and freshwater treatment, no money to pay for good food instead of hunting wild game and properly (!) processing and storing it, no money to pay for healthcare and basic hygienic supplies, no money to pay for proper housing to keep pests away.
In other diseases, even modern Western countries aren't far away from serious issues if even one of these preconditions collapses. Homeless encampments are a persistent source of nasty bugs, you get water boil-off orders after damages to the tap water systems for similar reasons, and hell Covid showed how vulnerable we are to supply chain interruptions for basic PPE.
It also doesn't help the game species that are hunted are a lot closer to ourselves in relation than many other typical game species elsewhere in the world. Much more likely for zoonotic spillover.
In a globalized society, all of this is downstream of a dysfunctional economic system, which itself is downstream of the misplaced priorities of the countries with the most power. Speaking out of my ass, but I'd bet that the amount of money spent on wars by 5 certain countries over the past 5 years could have been used to eradicate Ebola. But we chose one use for all of that time and energy, and not the other, so here we are.