How trust deficit fuels Ebola conspiracy theories

A nurse is assisted by a colleague in donning personal protective equipment (PPE) at an isolation facility prepared to receive potential Ebola patients during a media visit to Nairobi Hospital in Nairobi on October 7, 2026. [AFP]

In 2014, at the height of Ebola outbreak in West Africa, I had reason to visit Monrovia for work. While out there, I had multiple conversations with otherwise reasonable people who peddled the worst conspiracy theories about the outbreak.

Among the more outlandish claims was that then President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was making up the Ebola numbers to attract foreign aid. This was when Liberia was particularly dependent on foreign aid, having only recently come out of civil war. The claim reflected deep distrust of President Sirleaf's government. Everybody knew the reality of the disease. People were dying. There were emergency aid workers everywhere. Monrovia had hand sanitisation stations and all manner of public service announcements about the disease.