MONROVIA,
Liberia — Emily Abaleo, 38, sits on a narrow bench, squashed between
her snoring son and two younger daughters who pass the time by elbowing
one another in this city's West Point slum. She recalls better times there, before a deadly virus hit, before a quarantine to stop it and before it killed her husband.
B.E., or Before Ebola, was a time just a few short months ago before everything changed and life here in the slum became even harder.
"It has been difficult to feed these children as a single parent," she says. "Life is so unbearable when you are under quarantine."
Abaleo's husband died of Ebola in early August when the disease swept the slum that sits on a peninsula on the western edge of this capital city. In response, the government sealed off the district with barbed wire in an attempt to enforce a strict quarantine and a dawn-to-dusk curfew to curb growing unrest against it.
As a result, thousands of people — estimates put the population of West Point at 75,000 — are chafing under the restrictions as Ebola continues to spread like wildfire in the cramped conditions of the township. The hardest hit of three West African countries that mark the epicenter of the virus' deadly spread, Liberia has lost 2,413 to the virus, nearly half of the 5,000 killed by Ebola, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
At the same time, another 2,000 Liberians have been infected since the outbreak started in spring. West Point is not ground zero — that would be Lofa County in the north — but it's close.
Liberia may be witnessing a slowing in the spread of the virus, World Health Organization officials said last week, cautioning that it would be false to say the outbreak is under control.
"We're seeing a reversal of that rapid rate of increase to the point that there seems to be a decline right now," WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward told reporters. "But that would be like saying your pet tiger is under your control."
B.E., or Before Ebola, was a time just a few short months ago before everything changed and life here in the slum became even harder.
"It has been difficult to feed these children as a single parent," she says. "Life is so unbearable when you are under quarantine."
Abaleo's husband died of Ebola in early August when the disease swept the slum that sits on a peninsula on the western edge of this capital city. In response, the government sealed off the district with barbed wire in an attempt to enforce a strict quarantine and a dawn-to-dusk curfew to curb growing unrest against it.
As a result, thousands of people — estimates put the population of West Point at 75,000 — are chafing under the restrictions as Ebola continues to spread like wildfire in the cramped conditions of the township. The hardest hit of three West African countries that mark the epicenter of the virus' deadly spread, Liberia has lost 2,413 to the virus, nearly half of the 5,000 killed by Ebola, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Liberia may be witnessing a slowing in the spread of the virus, World Health Organization officials said last week, cautioning that it would be false to say the outbreak is under control.
"We're seeing a reversal of that rapid rate of increase to the point that there seems to be a decline right now," WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward told reporters. "But that would be like saying your pet tiger is under your control."
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