Economics

LIBERIA: ANALYSIS OF EBOLA'S IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY

WASHINGTON POST                           OCT. 15, 2014

By Ylan Q. Mui
MONROVIA                                      

"  the (Ebola) tragedy encompasses not only those who lost their lives and their families, but also the dreams of a country that was on the cusp on an economic resurgence. With critical public works projects in limbo and businesses struggling, the virus is threatening Liberia’s chance to escape generations of poverty and join Africa’s rising prosperity.

“Liberia was moving,” said Estrada Bernard, chairman of the International Bank in Liberia and the Liberian president’s brother-in-law. “'The whole thing hinges upon how well we can get this virus under control.'”

People do business at the Waterside local market in the center of Monrovia, Liberia, over the summer. Just as their economies had begun to recover from the man-made horror of coups and civil war, the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been knocked back down by the Ebola virus. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh, File)

GENEVA — The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, said Monday.

Chan, who dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-03, said the Ebola outbreak had progressed from a public health crisis to “a crisis for international peace and security.”

“I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries,” she said in a statement delivered on her behalf to a conference in Manila, Philippines, and released by her office in Geneva. “I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.”

UPDATE  Liberia largely averts health worker strike that would have severely hampered Ebola response

ASSOCIATED PRESS            Updated: October 13, 2014 - 11:45 AM

By: JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH , Associated Press

MONROVIA, Liberia — Health workers reported for duty at Liberia's hospitals on Monday, largely defying calls for a strike that could have further hampered the country's ability to respond to the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

Nurses and other health workers — though not doctors — had threatened to strike if they did not receive the higher hazard pay they had been promised by the government. That would have made the already difficult care of Ebola patients even harder, since the bulk of the staff at clinics and hospitals is made of up of Liberia's nurses, physician assistants and community health workers.

"Considering the situation in which we find ourselves we don't think strike is the way forward," said Dr. Jerry Brown, head of ELWA2, a treatment center on the outskirts of Monrovia. "Because if we strike now, more and more patients will remain in the communities. And as more and more patients remain in the communities, there will be more new cases and there will be a setback."

Washington POst                                   Oct. 8, 2014
By Max Ehrenfreund

A report issued Wednesday by the World Bank forecasts that the total economic impact of Ebola could exceed $32 billion by the end of 2015 if the virus spreads from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to neighboring countries.

That single dollar amount doesn't fully convey the extraordinary human toll of a virus that kills four in five of its victims and could infect as many 1.4 million people by January. Yet the World Bank's estimate is a reminder that sickness and death are only part of what could be a developing regional crisis....