| Chronology of the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa |
| I
began this investigation expecting to show that the Sierra Leone
Government, my government, was wholly responsible for the disaster
unfolding in our country. The facts were indisputable: the outbreak had
started in the neighbouring republic of Guinea and our government
had had two full months to prepare before the first case was discovered
in Sierra Leone. And yet when Ebola entered, it swept through the
country with ease, almost as if we were defenseless. From the start
goverrnment figures were consistently lower than WHO's, and no one in
authority would acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, even when
we began to hear reports of entire villages decimated. Hundreds died,
perhaps even thousands, no one knows. Eventually the goverrnment
panicked at the scale of the emerging catastrophe, and once again we
had to run to the international community for rescue. Once again our
nation is threatened. Suitably patronizing and magnanimous, the world
outside Africa is responding. Meanwhile,the Guinean government, although hard hit, has battled valiantly against the disease and has managed to contain it to some extent.
In two short months, from May to July, our Ebola dead and crippled had
risen from zero to far outstrip theirs. This was the difference between
a sober-minded government and an incompetent one. This was how I saw it
when I started this work. Our chronology begins with a terse statement on the
WHO website, dated “The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Evidently the outbreak had started some time before
this and the authorities in |
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