The Cure For Ebola - Strong Central Government

The epidemic of Ebola disease in West Africa is bringing to the fore something that needs to be said loudly and clearly:  strong central government and well funded public health services are essential for our continued survival.  

There has been a lot of blame passed around in the Developed world for the way that Ebola has gotten so out of hand.  Things that we could have anticipated, should have known sooner, etc. .. The fact is, the real reason that the present epidemic got out of hand is because it originated in countries that all have weak central governments and rudimentary to non-existent public health services.  

When Ebola threatened to invade Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, it was beaten back by prompt and effective public health measures.  

Suppose that Nigeria had had a government like Sierra Leone’s.  We would now be looking at an unimaginable catastrophe with hundreds  of millions of lives at stake.  

Now that we have seen a handful of Ebola cases turn up in Europe and the United States, we are about to see a controlled experiment unfold.  One can easily guess what the results will be.  Ebola will be safely contained in any country with a strong central government and a good public health system  and it will not be contained in countries that lack these things.  

We take a lot for granted about the way we live.  We may want to live free, without the restraints of big government.  But some of those restraints are there to keep society from breaking down.  Vaccinations, and universal access to medical care benefit everyone because they help prevent the spread of disease, and they allow more people to be productive members of society. Without public health and an educated public  there is widespread ignorance about how a disease spreads, and how it can be contained.

We are seeing the results of a serious epidemic  in West Africa when the governments in question are too weak to respond effectively.  What happens is an exponential increase in infections and death rates and the ominous breakdown in social institutions. Schools closed,  transportation and trade affected,  the breakdown of local governments, communities and families.  All of these things magnify the spread of Ebola and make the job of fighting the disease many times harder.   

The Ebola epidemic is a valuable real-time lesson in the importance of the Public Sector.  Simply put, if you want to avoid the plague, drowning the government in a bathtub is not a good idea.