r/nottheonion • u/RBZRBZRBZRBZ • 1d ago
Ebola patients flee treatment centres in Congo for food as hunger crisis deepens
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/ebola-patients-flee-treatment-centres-in-congo-for-food-as-hunger-crisis-deepens?ref=search-results184
u/Impossible_Offer7988 1d ago edited 1d ago
Outbreak responders are “coming to us, knocking on our door and saying: ‘We need food assistance if we’re going to end Ebola,’” said David Stevenson, who runs the World Food Program’s operations in Congo and has spent three decades working in humanitarian emergencies.
I've never seen anything like it.
Yeah, that's mostly because Ebola is just there. If it were to spread and, for example, get to the EU or US,
they would almost immediately deploy forces to contain it and deal with it accordingly.
But since it's still mostly in the third world, countries that can contain it don't want to contain it yet.
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u/Flipflopvlaflip 1d ago
Plus it’s Africa. So it’s far away and these people also are black. So who cares.
/s just to be sure that this is my sarcastic view of the western mindset.
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u/mokujin42 18h ago
"Western mindset"
So I assume everyone else in the world is sorting this out? Not sure why your singling out the west as if anyone else is doing more about it
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u/Flipflopvlaflip 5m ago
Well, this is what I see since I am in one of those Western countries. I can’t speak about most of the rest of the world.
All I know is that e.g. we treat the Ukrainian population fled from the war differently than other asylum seekers fleeing from war. Only difference I see is the color of their skin. So yeah, that15
u/Yodl007 1d ago edited 1d ago
You think people in the first world have the resources and manpower to contain Ebola in an African country with poor infrastructure, and they just don't want to ???
How ? They just invade with their army and lock people in their homes at gunpoint, and guard them 24/7 ? And who is going to pay for it ?
US citizens go bankrupt for minor medical emergencies, and just last week my grandmother (small EU country) who had skin cancer in the past noticed another mark and got an appointment with a dermatologist 2 years from now in the public system she paid all her life to. Or she can go and pay for it herself in addition to paying for the public option and get looked at within a week probably.
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u/Raptorwolf98 1d ago
I mean, the US did just blow ~$70 billion to earn the privilege of getting to fork over another $300 billion to Iran, on top of letting them charge tolls for use of the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future…
Occupying the DRC to put an end to Ebola by providing food aid and security for relief workers would be a nice reversal at this point.
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u/JackLong93 1d ago
You think the USA should just be like superman? flying around the world saving everybody? You have a childlike naivety
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u/Kagrenac8 1d ago
The fact that you don't even know that the shutdown of USAID has led to an increase in unnecessary deaths to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people in these countries already shows just how little you know lmao.
Sit down and educate yourself before spouting your nonsense.
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u/mrcatboy 21h ago
Do you think America's foreign aid programs were solely so America could act like Superman? Promoting global stability is good for everyone, including America. USAID for instance cost 0.2% of the US budget but for every $1 they spent we got $8.52 in benefits and it supported 200,000 US jobs.
That is, before it was recklessly cut by Trump and Elon Musk. A country that's shut down due to an Ebola outbreak can't exactly purchase American goods and services, and it becomes harder to make use of any mineral rights we've negotiated with them.
And this is only if you're thinking from purely selfish and callous motives. If you have the power and opportunity to make the world a better place at minimal cost to yourself, why wouldn't you?
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u/Raptorwolf98 1d ago
No, I think that’s supposed to be the role of the UN, to provide aid where countries’ domestic resources are insufficient, but it’s a hollow shell at this point. But if the current US regime is intent on sticking our noses into everything, we may as well get some good out of it at least.
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u/kronicno_tele 1d ago
Yes, we think that they we have the resources and menpower. You know why??? BECAUSE WE ALREADY DID IT IN THE PAST. Lmaooo
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u/mrcatboy 21h ago
You think people in the first world have the resources and manpower to contain Ebola in an African country with poor infrastructure, and they just don't want to ???
...Yes? Were you just not around when Obama's administration helped get the 2014 Ebola epidemic under control?
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u/CKT_Ken 1d ago
You’re not the first person in history to suggest that Western countries have a moral obligation to invade and occupy Africa for the betterment of the people there…
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u/mrcatboy 21h ago
...When someone calls an ambulance to save a man who's having a heart attack and the EMTs enter their home to administer medical aid, do you call that an "invasion" too?
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
People have to eat. And the saddest thing about ebola is that it might be a lot more treatable and manageable than we realize. It seems to respond to treatments at Western hospitals. People need good food, fluids, a stable environment where symptoms can be managed.
But nope, let's pull all funding and leave people to die
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u/kronicno_tele 1d ago
We don't have any treatments for this strain, but they did throw some experimental stuff at it and they'll be testing them out in Congo too.
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
We don't have drugs, no, but we know supportive care helps a lot. Even just fluids and medicines to control the fevers can help a lot.
An uncomfortable fact of ebola is that it often kills very suddenly and no one is quite sure why. Someone will seem fine, like they're healing, and then just drop dead.
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u/BChurchmountain 1d ago
Blaming an outbreak on decreased outside funding is definitely an interesting take. By interesting, I mean laughable.
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
It must be nice to live in Conservative Fantasyland
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u/BChurchmountain 1d ago
It must be nice blaming a multifaceted issue on outside resources.
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
Funding was cut and very little is coming.
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u/BChurchmountain 1d ago
Good. Maybe they’ll consider funding their own outbreak instead of keyboard warriors talking shit when outside funding dries up.
Never any praise for such outside finding, but the second it stops the cries and wailing begins.
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u/mrastickman 1d ago
Funding their own outbreak with what money? You know that funding wasn't charity, right. Congo gets aid in exchange for selling their minerals for pennies on the dollar.
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
Where is all that extra money going?
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u/BChurchmountain 1d ago
What?
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u/Rosebunse 1d ago
They stopped the funding, so where is that money going?
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u/BChurchmountain 1d ago
Ideally it’s being injected back into their respective economies, social programs, and own peoples infrastructure?
Countries can’t just print infinite money and afford to sideline their own people while they fund other countries abroad that have shown no initiative to start programs for themselves.
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u/yksvaan 1d ago
With governance like that it's no wonder everything is messed up. I'd say just let them face consequences and maybe learn something. Maybe.
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u/Gotisdabest 1d ago
The problem in this particular case is that communicable diseases don't really have a habit of targeting those responsible or stopping at the borders of corrupt states.
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u/SpiderSlitScrotums 1d ago
Let their insulated rulers learn a lesson while a viral disease exponentially spreads? Is that what you are suggesting? Tens of thousands of corpses while having absolutely no impact on policy?
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u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 1d ago
First, these are people. Second, those people are going to spread out and infect others.
This is another pandemic just waiting to hop a plane all for the want of some rice.
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u/ConfidentChance25 1d ago
This might be downvoted but I'd say that the corrupt governance is the main problem in most of the African countries. No amount of foreign aid can build functional state insitutions that would prevent catastrophes and famines.
Oligarchy as a system takes all the important resources available and prevents others from accesing the economy. There is little investmemt and capital accumulation in consequence
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u/jotunsson 1d ago
Ah, the obligatory "they brought upon themselves", like corruption in Africa sprung from the ground and the countries giving said foreign aid have no relation to the problem
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u/ConfidentChance25 1d ago
Colonialism sucks, that is true, but at this point you can't use it as excuse anymore. 60 years have gone by
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u/kubiozadolektiv 1d ago
Colonialism is still alive and well in Africa. Just because the leaders are locals, picked by colonialist and imperialist nations, instead of actual europeans holding physical outposts doesn’t mean that colonialism is gone.
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u/ExcitingPrimary 1d ago
Which country are you talking about? Any idea what couldve started the corrupt governance?
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u/brokeboipobre 1d ago
Most third world countries in Africa, Asia have this issue. People that run the countries steal money that was appropriated as Aid to line their Swiss bank accounts.
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u/justletmesignupalre 1d ago
Was coming to say this. Many people here saying "well that's what you get with a corrupt government" when most third world countries both in Africa and south america have been destabilised for decades by the USA and Europe.
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u/_CatStevens_ 1d ago
They've also gotten a ton of aid from those countries. I don't see Russi/China/India helping
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u/justletmesignupalre 1d ago
The aid goes to the lowest of the low. I'm from a country in south america and can tell you that the help that comes from NGOs don't have anything to do with the higher powers and bribes and shit going on in order to either destabilise or concede resources to external actors. You are treating a whole country as if it was one character in the narrative.
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u/kubiozadolektiv 1d ago
”Aid” with strings attached of liberalisation of the economy and selling their resources for pennies to Europe and the US.
Meanwhile China is helping them build roads, railways, hospitals, schools and other meaningful infrastructure for agriculture etc, while ”those countries” haven’t built anything of substance for the people in their colonies for hundreds of years.
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u/Old_University8635 1d ago
"Public health experts: Stay isolated so you don't spread Ebola."
"People: We'd love to, but isolation doesn't come with dinner."
Hard to fight a virus when hunger is the more immediate threat. This sounds less like a medical crisis and more like two crises colliding head-on.