Two months ago, it was a media scare. The newspapers talked of nothing else | even more than of the winds of war. A new Ebola epidemic, described by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "out of control," was raging in eastern Congo and along the borders with the Central African Republic, Uganda, and South Sudan. Then came the counter-order, and silence fell | the same silence that has reigned since 1976 (exactly fifty years ago), when the first viral strain | transmitted by a bat or a rainforest monkey | was simultaneously isolated in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (specifically in the village of Yambuku, not far from the Ebola River, the "White River").
Since then, there have been no fewer than 16 emergencies, culminating in the 2014-2016 epidemic that affected Guinea (460 cases, 339 deaths), Liberia (329 cases, 156 deaths), Sierra Leone (9,000 cases, 7,014 deaths), and | to a lesser extent | Nigeria, Senegal, and Mali. These are official figures | and thus estimates | from countries lacking adequate healthcare and statistical tracking infrastructure; yet, they reveal an extremely high mortality rate, ranging from 34% to 70% of cases | comparable to that of the Black Death in the Middle Ages.
Throughout these years, not only has there been no effort to eradicate the virus | which was possible | or to implement prevention protocols, but health conditions in the affected countries have actually deteriorated; furthermore, a third of the humanitarian aid previously guaranteed by the USA has recently been withdrawn. Populations struck by the virus lack protective gear, medicines, and doctors; there is uncertainty regarding how and where to treat cases, and even fuel for transport is in short supply. Yet Ebola had already resurfaced in the Congo (North Kivu, amidst a war zone) between 2018 and 2020 and in Uganda in 2023, evolving into increasingly aggressive forms. Indeed, the Bundibugyo strain | responsible for the current outbreak | has a mortality rate of 90%, making the figure of 600 deaths released in early July by the Congolese Ministry of Health appear vastly underestimated; that count fails to account for the large number of sick individuals who could not be reached due to logistical and military constraints.
"Red death" | so named because it is caused by a hemorrhagic fever | has been allowed to spread across time and space as the geopolitical situation in the affected countries deteriorated, alongside the state of their prevention and emergency response systems. The only silver lining is that the disease is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals (blood, saliva, sweat, urine) rather than through the respiratory tract, as was the case with COVID. It is unlikely to spread to Western nations, which possess adequate sanitation and healthcare infrastructure | amenities largely absent in African countries and the Global South. In any event, President Trump was the first to impose entry restrictions on travelers from various African nations and to establish a specialized facility in Kenya to assist Americans working in the affected areas. The West is defending itself through exclusion rather than cooperation.
These conditions create an ideal environment for studying the virus's evolution on-site and for the trials that researchers from European and American universities are conducting to test | and subsequently market | expensive new vaccines. Ebola serves as the test subject, and the sick as guinea pigs. What does it matter if local populations are decimated, if healthcare systems are collapsing, or if there is a real risk of the disease spreading to the rest of Africa? This adds yet another piece to the colonial plunder unfolding unchecked across territories gripped by the epidemic | territories that, incidentally, suffer the immense misfortune of possessing vast, not yet fully explored deposits of gold, coltan, cassiterite (tin), diamonds, cobalt, and copper. These resources are coveted by Silicon Valley tycoons, and the struggle to control them has ignited the wars currently bloodying the region.
It becomes clear, then, why the initial media attention surrounding the Congo epidemic was universally silenced, and why | during that same period, after five years of negotiations and two postponements | the international agreement among WHO member states to effectively prevent and combat pandemics fell apart, perhaps for good. Key elements of the agreement included the monitoring of pathogens, the development of emergency plans and infrastructure, and the necessity of solidarity between nations. The reason for the failure? A refusal to equitably share information regarding new, economically significant pathogens.
N.M.
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/wp-content/uploads/luglioAgosto2026_compressed.pdf
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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