Africa's Ebola Should Be China's Problem

China may be Africa's biggest trading partner and one of its biggestinvestors, but you wouldn't know that from the size of its contribution toward fighting West Africa's Ebola outbreak.

In fact, the contrast between its assistance and that of the U.S. is instructive: Today, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would raise the total of U.S.increase the number of its medical personnel in Sierra Leone to 174 and raise its total amount of assistance to roughly $37 million.

personnel now in Africa dealing with Ebola to 3,000; the U.S. has committed more than $175 million in aid. With much fanfare, China has said it will

I know, I know: Relative to the U.S., China remains a poor country, and its growing willingness to extend humanitarian assistance outside its borders is a good thing. But consider this: China has close to 20,000 citizens working and living in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Setting aside U.S. money flowing into Liberia's lucrative shipping registry, China's investment in those three countries dwarfs that of the U.S. (In fact, China's trading relationship with Africa overall is twice that of the U.S.) It recently signed deals for iron ore mining in the region that collectively run into the billions of dollars.

Yet Chinese generosity hasn't exactly wowed the locals. Consider thisarticle from one Liberian newspaper about an Ebola relief donation by China Union, a mining company with operations there:

Receiving the items on behalf of the citizens, the Clan Chief of Zeakomu Clan Fuamah District, lower Bong County; Mrs. Farta Yassoh expressed disappointment in China Union and said the citizens of Fuamah District have always been disappointed when it comes to donation and development to the people of Fuamah District, lower Bong County, by China Union. Chief Yassoh said since the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the district, this is the first time China Union has made donation to the people of Fuamah.

Mrs. Yassoh has a point: Set against the $2.6 billion agreement that China Union signed with Liberia in 2008 to mine iron ore, those "12 preventive Ebola buckets" and 10 25-kilogram bags of rice don't look like much.

Chinese foreign investment has been a powerful force for African economic development (and, sadly, for the retirement funds of African kleptocrats). But China isn't going to build up its soft power unless its government and state-owned enterprises in Africa are willing to dig a little deeper. Meanwhile, the paltriness of China's assistance relative to both its commercial presence and to the U.S. also raises a difficult question for American strategists and bean counters: Especially in Africa and the Middle East, how do you get China to stop free-riding in a way that still protects the prerogatives of an aging hegemon?

By James Gibney

Ebola China is the key to high-risk Christmas

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A scientist who helped to discover the Ebola virus says he is concerned the disease could spread to China given the large numbers of Chinese workers traveling to and from Africa.

Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said on Thursday the scenario of the deadly virus reaching China was 'not rocket science.'

'The concern I have is that I don't think you can really stop people from traveling. These patients will show up in any country in the world, but China is quite vulnerable,' Piot said.

'The issue is: "What is the quality, the standard of infection control?" In public hospitals in China, the ones that I've visited, the level of infection control is very poor,' he said.

But Piot said China's controls for infectious diseases have improved and authorities have become more open about public health risks since severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, broke out in southern China in 2002. SARS infected about 8,000 people worldwide, killing nearly 800.

The current Ebola outbreak has killed around 5,000 people and infected around 10,000, mostly in the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organisation says.

Isolated cases have turned up in the US and Spain as a result of people infected with the virus but not showing symptoms traveling from Africa.

Piot said Japan has disease controls and hygiene that are up to international standards, but that it needs to do more to help combat what has become not just an epidemic but a humanitarian crisis.

Piot is a board member of the Global Health Innovative Technology fund, a collaboration funded by the Japanese government, Japanese pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The fund supports research into treatments for malaria, tuberculosis, dengue and other tropical diseases. Piot said despite the urgency of the Ebola crisis, it was crucial funds not be diverted from those diseases to fight Ebola.

Treating the Ebola outbreaks as a humanitarian crisis would help overcome worries over budgetary issues, he said.Japan has pledged $40million so far to help combat the Ebola outbreak, but Piot said more is needed.

'I appeal to Japan to contribute from their very rich tradition, in all senses of the word, of humanitarian assistance.'

'When there is a humanitarian crisis, there is always money, and rightly so,' Piot said. 'Ebola is in that category.'

His comments came as the World Health Organization declared that Liberia, the country worst-hit by Ebola, may be seeing a decline in the spread of the virus.

WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said the number of burials and new admissions had fallen and there was a plateau in laboratory-confirmed cases, though he cautioned against overly optimistic conclusions.

'All the data point in the same direction,' he told a news conference. 'Do we feel confident that the response is now getting an upper hand on the virus? Yes, we are seeing slowing rate of new cases, very definitely.'

'We're seeing a reversal of that rapid rate of increase to the point that there seems to be a decline right now,' he said.

The comments were echoed by Jeremy Farrar, director of charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust. He too urged caution and said the next few weeks will be crucial to locking in potential gains made through increased international support.

'We're going through a very, very important phase. For the first time during this epidemic I think we will look on the last week as the week we put in place the jigsaw puzzle that changes the epidemic,' he told Reuters.

'I'm not saying the epidemic has been affected at all yet. It hasn't. But I do think the pieces are in place now that if we live up to those ... it will be enough to turn this epidemic around,' he said.

Almost 300 fewer people have died from Ebola in Liberia than previously thought, while more than 200 have been added to Sierra Leone's toll, the WHO said. The new data and an overall toll of 4,922 came after WHO cleaned its data.

By TED THORNHILL FOR MAILONLINE

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