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　　Ebola spreads through contact with the blood andfluids of infected people. But experts say theoutbreak is also being fueled by poverty and poorgovernance.

　　In West Africa, they are literally building the facilitiesto handle Ebola from scratch. Improvised tentshouse quarantined Ebola patients.

　　Many hospitals in the region lack basic equipment,says Tulane University virus expert Dr. DanielBausch. He spoke to VOA by Skype.

　　“You go to a hospital in Sierra Leone or Liberia, and it’s not unusual for a healthcare worker tosay, ‘We don’t have gloves.’ Or, ‘We don’t have clean needles,'"said Bausch.

　　Poor health systems plague the continent’s other Ebola hotspots, too. Bausch says there's acommon factor.

　　“All of the large outbreaks of Ebola or its sister virus, Marburg, happen in places where socialand political unrest over the years have decimated the public health system," he said.

　　The war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo has seen six Ebola outbreaks. Civil wars wreckedhealth systems in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 90s and 2000s.

　　Meanwhile, working in neighboring Guinea, Bausch watched paved roads erode to dirt pathsand towns slide deeper into poverty under the weight of dictatorship and corruption.

　　“That period of not-responsible government degraded the systems, public health and otherwisein Guinea, and I think did have a role in leaving the country open to this sort of epidemic," hesaid.

　　Like the health systems, many people in Ebola-stricken regions lack the resources to get by.And that puts them at risk.

　　As they cut down forests for charcoal and to grow food, Bausch says they are driving the batsthought to carry the virus out into the open.

　　“With deforestation, bats that ordinarily would be foraging for fruit within fairly remote areasinside the forest now are forced to come out and look for fruit, for example, mango trees thatmay be in the proximity of humans and bring them closer to humans and have more of achance of introduction of the virus," said Bausch.

　　And poverty is also driving people deeper into the forest in search of food, including so-called"bushmeat," which is known to carry the virus.

　　It doesn’t have to be this way, says Dr. William Karesh with the EcoHealth Alliance, alsospeaking via Skype.

　　“You have outbreaks in Uganda and they have invested in their health systems and they haveinvested in their education systems. So, of course, they still have these outbreaks but they’recontrolled very rapidly," said Karesh.

　　Once this outbreak ends, Karesh says, health officials need to start preparing for the next onewith better labs and hospitals, and more public information on how to prevent infection.

　　“We can’t stop earthquakes, but we can prevent a lot of the damage of earthquakes. And it’sthe same with these emerging diseases and Ebola," he said.

　　If governments invest in better education and healthcare systems, he says, the next outbreakcould be less deadly.

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