The outbreak of Ebola in early February in North Kivu, the eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the third in four years. It has broken out just about six months after the previous one was contained. Between 2018 and February 2020 another Ebola epidemic caused 2.299 deaths making it the second deadliest outbreak worldwide after that of 2014/15, which killed roughly 11.000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
This crisis, and Ebola in general, show clearly how it is capitalism that turns diseases into deadly catastrophes. First, by creating massive poverty and denying billions of people — especially in the neo-colonial world — basic facilities to live a decent life, capitalism creates the basis for the spread of such diseases.
This is demonstrated by the fact that over the last year thousands of people died due to Ebola, although it is only transmitted through contact with body fluids (blood, sperm, excrements etc.). That could be easily avoided, in most cases, if everyone across the globe had access to sanitation and a decent healthcare system, as well as contraceptives. This is entirely possible — given the massive amount of wealth accumulated by a handful of people as well the global state of productive forces. But the reality is that only 29% of the DRC’s population has access to sanitation facilities, while 33 millions in rural areas lack access to quality water.
The fact that capitalism turns everything into a commodity used to generate private profit also applies to the treatment of illnesses and the production of medication. Rather than inventing and producing drugs or vaccines according to people’s needs, the pharmaceutical industry produces products only as long as there are customers they can be sold too. This leaves the poor masses of DRC, Africa and the neo-colonial world out.
While the pursuit of profits has led to a massive, publicly funded, acceleration of research into COVID 19 by the pharmaceutical industry, no medication or vaccine against Ebola has been developed in over four decades — despite it having a fatality rate of 25–90%. Only in 2014, when the biggest outbreak caused cases in the Western world and a rise in the stocks of big pharma, was action taken.
The capitalist media might argue that this is because Ebola had caused only 3.000 deaths, and was a rare disease. However this does nothing but prove how the profit driven nature of capitalism is causing unnecessary deaths. In 2014 even the leading virologist at the Institute for Microbiology of the German Army (Institut für Mikrobiologie der Bundeswehr), Roman Wölfl had to concede: “Ebola belongs to those diseases that rarely occur outside of the third world. For the pharma industry this not a notably lucrative market, hence commercial research has a rather low priority in this field.” This also emanates from research published in one of world’s best-known general medical journals “The Lancet”, showing that between 2000 and 2011 out of 850 admitted pharmaceutical products only 37 (4%) deal with diseases characterized as Neglected Tropical Diseases by the WHO. This again shows the total contempt of life fostered by this rotten system.
The tremendous wealth of today’s capitalist elite could be used immediately to finance research as well as a top healthcare system in every corner of the planet. A socialist society would use a publicly and democratically owned pharma industry to rapidly develop and provide vaccines and medication against any harmful disease on this planet. This will be possible because of the vast resources that would become available due to the abolition of competition between different companies and elimination of unnecessary goods such as chemical weapons.
This would mean the current neo-colonial world would be equipped with modern technology and an infrastructure to prevent and cure diseases. And in addition, production would be conducted in such a way as to prevent epidemics and diseases, allowing for a rise in living standards as well as ecological compatibility. All this is impossible under capitalism.
Ebola is yet another reason to fight for a better — a socialist — world.
