Another day has just broken in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Outside a block of humble flats on Centre Street, two women in long overcoats jump out of a taxi, avoiding the torrents of rainwater pouring along the gutter as they manage a large plastic bucket. On the porch, a crowd of young homeless men take shelter. They are about to receive a lesson in handwashing, non-contact and recognising symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus. It has killed 249 of their countrymen so far since March, 961 worldwide, and prompted 1,779 reported cases internationally.
The fact that Ebola is spread through bodily fluids such as sweat and saliva means reducing physical contact has become a national obsession. At any time of day, outside banks, shops and homes, people disinfect their hands with chlorinated water. Shaking hands is forbidden and some have donned latex gloves.
Last week the government ramped up anti-Ebola measures. On Wednesday, Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, declared a state of emergency for 90 days. Her televised statement sent a new wave of fear through communities following two weeks of alarming announcements. The government has already sent home non-essential staff, closed schools and forbidden large gatherings. Last week three days of national fasting and prayer pushed many businesses into shutting up shop. But Sirleaf's message that the new arrangements allow the government to 'institute extraordinary measures, including, if need be, the suspension of certain rights and privileges', has left many wondering what will happen next.
'No, I don't think the government has made the right decision,' says one of the flats' residents, Christina Quinn, who has come down from the upper balcony clutching her one-year-old twins to listen to the women. 'Three months is not a short time to declare a state of emergency. How do you expect citizens to get food and do their normal business?'
Quinn says her mobile phone business has declined sharply since the Ebola outbreak reached Monrovia. She is a single mother with four children to support. 'It will increase the hardship, tension and prices, because now there is no cargo in the Monrovia area - they have closed the roads,' she says.
Troops set up checkpoints last week to reduce people's movements in five of the country's 15 counties. But Operation White Shield effectively trapped hundreds of travellers and traders in Ebola-affected areas outside the city. Liberia's land borders have also been closed since July, cutting off vital trade routes. The country is heavily dependent on imports, including 90% of the rice it consumes.
Quinn's neighbour shares her concerns. Charles Ngafuan, 16, is frying doughnuts on the next veranda. As he prods the dough deep into oil boiling over a charcoal stove, he explains Ebola has pushed up the price of ingredients. 'Before, a 50kg bag of flour was 2,500 Liberian dollars [£16.11]. Now it's L$3,500,' he says. 'Since Ebola has come up, the food in the market has been scarce. People in the streets are hungry and I have more customers because they are looking for food.'
He will not charge more for his doughnuts to reflect rising costs, but he does plan to make them smaller.
The overcoated women position their bucket to catch rainwater shooting off the roof, and their organisation's director begins his Ebola speech. Michael John Bull of the British charity Street Child Liberia implores the group to take precautions. 'Please wash your hands several times a day - we want you to be alive when this Ebola thing is over,' he says. 'People are dying, medical staff are dying - even American doctors - so we know this is real.'
Mentioning the two medical staff from the US charity Samaritan's Purse who contracted the virus is necessary to convince the crowd that the threat from haemorrhagic fever is legitimate. One of the reasons Ebola is spreading is because people presenting symptoms do not believe the disease is real until they become highly contagious. Another reason is the wild rumours circulating in Monrovia, such as the one about doctors harvesting organs from unconfirmed Ebola cases. The virus, which has no cure, is considered a death sentence, with mortality rates in this outbreak at 55%. Bull's audience shuffles carefully in the confined space as they listen. Their reluctance to touch each other suggests they are believers.
A truck pulls up, stacked high with packets of water. Usually Liberians consider these safer than drinking from wells, but today business is slow for the sellers. Last week reports that some people deliberately poisoned local water sources, including those used by drinking-water companies, have left local people unsure what is safe. A Liberian newspaper published photos of two suspects on Friday, along with one of a dead dog that reportedly 'melted instantly upon drinking water from the well'. Fear provoked by the scandal has spread easily among the tense population.
It is these economic and social concerns that consume Monrovians at present, rather than the Ebola sickness itself. The images published in the international press of corpses thrown from houses and health workers fastened into rubber bodysuits are far from a reality in the city.
'I haven't seen any bodies in the street,' says social worker Prosper Perkins. 'I heard on the radio there were two bodies at Barnesville Junction, but there was no testing centre to identify what caused their death. I'm of the strong opinion those people died of other illnesses because doctors and nurses have abandoned the hospitals for their own safety.'
Since the crisis began, medical staff have fled their jobs to avoid Ebola victims, forcing clinics to close. People with diseases common in the rainy season, such as malaria and typhoid, are thus unable to find treatment. Some fear if they do, doctors will suspect them of having Ebola and quarantine them with infectious patients.
Bull produces a bag of white chlorine powder and adds it to the now filled bucket. But some of the men on the porch have lost interest and start asking for food. A couple have scraped together L$10 for a doughnut, which comes wrapped in yesterday's newspaper, filled with Ebola news. But the rest are hungry. 'If we don't get some support for our condition, we'll make trouble,' one threatens, shivering in damp clothes.
His threat is a reminder of what Monrovians really fear: that the stability they have gradually built up since 2003, when the country's horrific civil war ended, will fall apart. The general secretary of Liberia's YMCA, the country's oldest youth organisation, warned last week that young people would revert to crime if they could not feed themselves. 'Young people are still very conflict-prone and can easily be mobilised into hostilities,' Edward Gboe said from a deserted YMCA headquarters. 'In terms of full-scale civil war, that is unlikely. But with violence it's possible we could be going backwards.'
One of the YMCA's beneficiaries, a 22-year-old trainee hairdresser, agrees she is afraid. Single mother Grace Cole lives in a slum. Her training in a salon near Centre Street is funded by British charity Y Care International. She already feels the country is at war. 'Foreigners are scared of coming here now, which makes me feel very, very bad,' she says. 'I remember the war from when I was little: people killing people in front of me and raping. I'm worried about the situation getting worse.'
Bull and his team manage to calm the restless group and position the prepared bucket on the porch's brick wall. One by one, the rain having slowed, the men turn the bucket's plastic tap and douse their hands in the life-saving water. Girls also appear on the porch to try the new ritual.
On Sunday, like many Liberians, Bull will go to church to pray for the crisis to end. 'Even in the church, the priest will announce from the pulpit not to shake hands or touch,' he says. 'People will stand far apart from each other.'
Quinn agrees that praying is almost all local people can do. 'For us now, we can only depend on almighty God,' she says.
What is different about this outbreak?
The World Health Organisation says this is the most severe outbreak since the disease was first identified 40 years ago. It has predicted that the disease could continue spreading for months -and there is little that can be done to contain it. 'The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it,' the WHO's director general, Margaret Chan, acknowledged last week.
Which countries are most at risk?
Those in west Africa - in particular Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. But concerns have spread. Last Friday authorities in Uganda said a suspected Ebola patient had tested negative, while a hospital in Benin is treating a Nigerian man suspected of having the disease.
What needs to be done?
The WHO says that all states with Ebola transmission should declare a national emergency but that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade. Nevertheless, many western governments are pulling embassy and other staff from the affected countries as a precaution. Foreign governments are pumping money into health organisations working on the ground.
Why is the disease so serious?
Ebola has no proven cure and there is no vaccine, so the best treatment is focused on alleviating symptoms such as fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.
Could it spread here?
Public Health England insists that for people in the UK there is no change in the current risk assessment, which remains very low. It states: 'No cases of imported Ebola have ever been reported in the UK, and the risk of any traveller to west Africa contracting Ebola is very low without direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person.'
Is there any hope of better treatment?
An experimental drug has been given to two US charity workers who were infected in Liberia. Ebola specialists have urged the WHO to offer the drugs to Africa and it has asked medical ethics experts to examine this option. Meanwhile shares in Canadian pharmaceutical company Tekmira rose on Friday after a regulator cleared its experimental Ebola drug for potential use in humans. The drug is one of three that have shown promising results when tested on monkeys, but it is unproven in humans.
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