News:
The number of people killed by Ebola has reached almost 7,000 as it emerged the World Health Organisation has missed ambitious targets to contain the deadly disease.
The death toll currently stands at 6,928, according to the U.N. health agency, with the total number of people infected with the killer virus having surpassed 16,000.
The figures, released today, come almost two months after the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched an ambitious plan to stop the outbreak in West Africa by aiming to isolate 70% of the victims in the three hardest-hit countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone by December 1st 2014.
Sebastian Funk, Director of the Centre for the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said, “It is essential to isolate 100% of patients with Ebola and have 100% safe burials.”
Dr. David Heymann, an Ebola expert who previously worked for the World Health Organisation, said, “We hope that the positive steps we’re seeing in Liberia will continue, but unfortunately what can happen with Ebola is that it can go to new countries, as it has already to Mali… The most dangerous thing would be if people now think Ebola is over and become complacent.'” Earlier this month, the U.S. announced it was scaling back the size and number of Ebola clinics it had initially promised to build in Liberia, citing a drop in cases.
Oyewale Tomori, of Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, who sits on WHO’s Emergency Ebola committee, said failing to reach the target now suggests Ebola will spread even further as capacities to respond become even more stretched. ‘We need to redouble our efforts to see what we can do to reduce the spread and catch up with the virus,’ he said.
‘Right now, it doesn’t look good.’ (Source: Daily Mail, 30 November 2014)
Comment:
For a world supposedly lead by the civilized and principled values of Capitalism, the increasingly dire situation in West Africa is witness yet again to an ugly reality, the brutal consequence of colonialism and its outrageous legacy. As western paranoia grows, leading nations are still impotent in face of this disaster, immune to the loss of life and in denial of their responsibility. Measures to confine the spread of Ebola are ill thought out and unrealistic. Countries such as Liberia, Sierrea Leone and Guinea all of which exist on extremely basic infrastructure cannot possibly cope with such a demand; and to add insult to injury, these infrastructures are deemed to remain weak and subservient to the west, via a purposeful impoverishment and entrapment by economic policies, World Bank loans, cheap labour and unrepresentative rulers, subservient only to the whims of global and transnational corporations, and the usual western greed for natural resources.
The correct viewpoint, based upon values of humanity would be to pool all efforts into assisting the struggling governments, by providing mass education, and confinement of the effected populations, followed by a mutual and concerted effort to develop a vaccine, with ample funding. Not resigning development to any one individual drug company, whose only concern is profit, but for nations to collectively fund the required research and development by way of multiple research facilities, unified teams and a pledge to fund the vaccine and all anti viral drugs required, as well as supporting water facilities and health care overall.
Such a vision however cannot be realised in a geopolitical reality which divides humanity into nations, fueling rivalry and greed, encouraging the usurping of the others wealth with no regard to life or consequence. This nationalistic worldview heightens racism and enables racial supremacy, so the lethargic response of western governments is unsurprising, and the paranoia fueling suspicion and racism among the populous in the comfortable West is its byproduct. Jean Marie le Pen the founder and ex leader of the right wing French National Front said, “Ebola is the answer to immigration problems”… And other so called liberal voices have sickeningly alluded to the same.
Islam as always exhibits its superiority as a complete Deen, and an ideological alternative to the weak and oppressive system of the world today. It has superseded modern societies by establishing the idea of quarantines. Our beloved Rasool Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said,
«إذا سمعتم بالطاعون بأرض فلا تدخلوها وإذا وقع بأرض وأنتم بها فلا تخرجوا منها»
“If you hear that a land has been stricken by plague, do not approach it, and if your land is stricken by plague, do not leave it”. (Sahîh al-Bukhârî 5728)
It is well known that plagues are contagious and the hadîth therefore gives us a general warning against all contagious diseases. Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al-Jarrah related that Umar Ibn Al Khattab was on his way to Syria and had reached Sarg when the leader of the Muslim army, Abu Ubaidah Ibn Al Jarrah, and his companions met him and told him of a pestilence that had broken out in Syria. ‘Umar remembered the Prophet’s صلى الله عليه وسلم saying:
«إذا سمعتم به بأرض فلا تقدموا عليه وإذا وقع بأرض وأنتم بها فلا تخرجوا فرارا منه»
“If it (plague) be in a country where you are staying, do not go out fleeing it, and if you hear it is in a country, do not enter it.” ‘Umar (ra) praised Allah and then departed.
Rasool Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم also commanded us to avoid such diseases. He also said,
«لا عَدْوَى ولا صَفَرَ ولا غُولَ»
“The person who has a contagious disease should not approach a healthy person.” (Sahîh Muslim 2221)
Only under the just and accountable leadership of the Khilafah, which embodies the sublime qualities of righteousness and humanity, humankind will once again experience an honorable existence, which values life equally. Until then we pray that our Muslim brothers and sisters are counted as Shaheed as our beloved صلى الله عليه وسلم said,
«الطاعون شهادة لكل مسلم»
“The plague is martyrdom for every Muslim.” (Bukhari 2830 and Muslim 1916)
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Um Mohammed