Ebola Response in Liberia Is Hampered by Infighting

URL:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/world/africa/ebola-response-in-liberia-is-hampered-by-infighting-.html?ref=science&_r=0

Mcneil, Donald G. "Ebola Response in Liberia Is Hampered by Infighting." The New York Times. The New       York Times, 19 Nov. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.

               I read an article written by Donald McNeil, called “Ebola Response in Liberia Is Hampered by Infighting”. The article was about the problems Liberia has to keep Ebola under control. The article talks about how the officials in Liberia and donors and health agencies, have poor coordination and serious disagreements. This news is from only a few minutes at a meeting. Some problems are that families cannot find out whether their relatives in treatment are alive or dead. Also, bodies have been cremated because a larger cemetery was not yet open and, health workers sent to take temperatures sometimes lack thermometers. These are all major problems because it causes distress to families, and, in the case of the thermometers, or lack thereof, the virus might be able to spread. However, the death toll dropped from 100 a day to about 20 a day, in Liberia. This is due to less human physical contact and better supplies for healthcare workers. Another explosion is always a possibility though. A man at the meeting, Dr. De Cock, cited the still high death rate to “serious logistics problems, including regular hospitals that cannot separate out Ebola patients, counties with no ambulances…”  One last problem is that donor countries, one Asian and two European, want to build hospitals near already open hospitals, when hospitals are needed elsewhere. Dr. De Cook also said, “This has to change.”

               This article does have a big effect on people and countries. This is the first time that the disorder in Liberia has been revealed, and now countries might not want to donate to the Liberian government. It is also a problem because it will affect the spread of the virus. If the donors and Liberian officials were on the same page then they might have been able to cause a quicker stop to the movement. This will then affect the death rate. Although the deaths might seem like another person dying to a family it could ruin everything, including a source income. Finally this is important to us because US helicopters fly into remote areas with Ebola around, and they might come back to the US with Ebola due to the disorganization in Liberia.

               In the article Donald McNeil did a good job of providing good information. The article had many quotes, facts, and opinions to support the article. The author also did a good job of making the article flow. I did have an easy time moving from paragraph to paragraph. However, the sentences were worded weirdly and quite difficult to understand at times. To improve this, the author could have used simpler vocab and wrote in a more common style. Also, the author contradicted himself, he wrote about how there were all these problems in Liberia and he said that the Ebola is getting better. I would have recommended taking out the part about how they are getting better. One final improvement the author could have made is that he could have described some aspects. I did not know what he was saying sometimes because there was not a clear explanation as to what meeting the people were at.  Overall, the article was a good source of information but could have been written better.