How the Global System Treats Some Lives as More Equal Than Others – and Creates the Conditions for the Next Pandemic

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who hopes for a better future for all children.

I. The Outbreak

In June 2026, the world was reminded that viruses do not respect borders. The Ebola outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain – a rare variant for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment – had spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Uganda and beyond.

As of early June, the DRC had reported 598 confirmed cases and 115 deaths. Uganda had confirmed 19 cases, including two deaths. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

The response was haphazard. Testing supplies were short. Armed conflict in eastern DRC disrupted surveillance and treatment. The WHO launched a $518 million response plan – but it was not clear if the funding would arrive in time.

And then came the US plan.

II. The US Plan: Quarantine for Americans, in Kenya

The US State Department proposed building a 50-bed quarantine and treatment facility at the Laikipia Air Base in central Kenya. The facility would be staffed by US medics and would treat American citizens believed to have been exposed to Ebola in the DRC and Uganda.

Kenya was selected because of “its proximity to the location of the outbreak and to ensure Americans can be treated in a timely manner“, according to US officials. A US official confirmed that “the first group has deployed. These individuals received extensive training in the use of PPE, in the use of proper quarantine techniques“.

The US has a network of 13 advanced biocontainment centres at home, including well-known facilities like the University of Nebraska and Emory University. At least nine of these are ready to handle Ebola patients. The US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing them since the 2014 West Africa outbreak. But the US government has vowed not to bring Ebola cases into the country.

Instead, they built a facility in Kenya. For Americans. Away from American soil.

The US committed $13.5 million to fund Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts, part of a larger $112 million US commitment for the regional response to the outbreak.

III. Why the Kenyans Are Rioting

The response was immediate – and furious.

Kenya’s largest doctors’ union, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), accused the government of engaging in “backdoor negotiations” and demanded the immediate release of any bilateral agreements underpinning the plan.

The union’s statement was blunt: “We will not tolerate an apartheid healthcare model on Kenyan soil.”

“If it is too dangerous for America, it is too dangerous for Kenya,” the union stated, referencing what it claimed was Washington’s refusal to allow Ebola cases on to US soil.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission echoed these concerns, arguing that “the plan to use Kenya as a quarantine zone for US citizens exposed to Ebola is a colonial relic that must be rejected.”

The High Court of Kenya suspended the plan, barring government agencies and officials from “establishing, operationalising, facilitating, approving or permitting” any Ebola-related quarantine, isolation or treatment centre tied to arrangements with the US or any foreign government in Kenya. Justice Patricia Nyaundi barred authorities from admitting into Kenya anyone exposed to or infected with Ebola under the proposed arrangement.

Katiba Institute, the human rights group that brought the case, argued that there was an imminent threat to life if the plans proceeded without safeguards.

The court agreed that public interest justified issuing interim orders while the matter was heard.

IV. The Colonial Logic

The US plan is not about public health. It is about containment. Not of the virus – of responsibility.

The logic is simple: Americans are too valuable to risk; Kenyans are not. Americans can be treated in a dedicated facility; Kenyans can fend for themselves.

The doctors’ union called it “apartheid healthcare.” That is not hyperbole. It is a description.

The US has the resources to treat Ebola patients at home. It has the infrastructure, the training, the funding. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing its own biocontainment centres. It could bring American patients home for treatment, as it did in 2014.

But it chooses not to. Instead, it offloads the risk to Kenya. To a country that has no recorded Ebola cases and limited healthcare infrastructure.

This is not a security measure. It is a business decision.

Kenya was selected not because it is best equipped to handle Ebola – but because it is convenient. Close enough to the outbreak to make sense, weak enough not to refuse.

The same logic that extracts resources from Africa now extracts risk from America.

V. The Double Standard

The US plan is not the only double standard.

The WHO has urged countries not to impose travel bans on affected areas, warning that “lockdowns or excessive travel restrictions are disrupting the supply chain of medical supplies and personnel”. The US has not imposed a travel ban. It has simply quarantined the risk – in someone else’s country.

The same logic that extracts resources from Africa – the cobalt, the coltan, the gold, the diamonds – now extracts immunity from America.

The victims – the Kenyan protestors, the Ebola patients, the healthcare workers struggling with shortages – are not people. They are obstacles.

VI. Resources Extracted, Lives Displaced

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the richest countries on Earth in terms of natural resources. It possesses:

· Cobalt: Approximately 69% of global production – essential for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles and electronics.

· Coltan: A significant share of global production – refined into tantalum, used in capacitors for smartphones, laptops, and other electronics.

· Copper, gold, diamonds, tin, tungsten, and uranium.

Yet the Congolese people remain among the poorest on Earth. The mining sector accounts for more than 90% of the country’s exports, but the wealth does not reach the population. Conflict, corruption, and instability have turned resource extraction into a curse rather than a blessing.

In eastern DRC, rebel groups control mines, seize resources, and smuggle them into the global supply chain. The M23 rebel group, supported by Rwanda, earns at least $800,000 per month from taxing coltan production from the Rubaya mine alone. In March 2025, M23 reportedly smuggled 195 tonnes of tin, tantalum, and tungsten minerals from Goma into Rwanda, where they are mixed with local production and passed off as Rwandan-origin materials.

The EU signed a strategic partnership with Rwanda in February 2024 to secure access to critical raw materials, including coltan and tantalum. One year later, the European Parliament slammed insufficient action to address the crisis and asked for the suspension of the agreement – but the extraction continues.

As one analyst noted, the peace deal brokered by the US appeared to be “primarily a mineral deal and only secondarily a chance for peace.”

The Kenyans are not disposable. The Congolese are not disposable. The Americans are not more valuable. But the system – the global system of extraction – acts as if they are.

VII. The Gaza Genocide and the Ultimate Extraction

The same logic of extraction applies to Gaza.

More than 25,000 tonnes of explosives have been used since October 2023, releasing toxic residues across densely populated urban areas. The resulting 39 million tonnes of debris contain hazardous substances including lead, mercury, and persistent organic pollutants.

Environmental monitoring by the United Nations Environment Programme confirms that the bombardment of Gaza has caused widespread contamination of soil, air, and groundwater with heavy metals, asbestos, and combustion by-products.

A 2025 letter in The BMJ warned that “the toxic residues of modern warfare, particularly heavy metals dispersed by bombardments, have repeatedly been shown to cross the placental barrier and impair fetal development.” The letter noted that “reports from Gaza’s physicians already describe premature births, infants weighing less than 1.5 kg, and severe congenital anomalies involving the nervous, cardiac, and skeletal systems.”

Persistent metals such as lead, tungsten, and depleted uranium can remain in soil and dust for decades, becoming incorporated into human tissues and transferred across generations. When this process occurs under conditions of micronutrient deficiency, malnutrition, or severe stress, teratogenic and neurodevelopmental risks are amplified.

The children of Gaza are being born into an environment biologically unfit for human development.

This is the ultimate extraction: the extraction of a future generation.

VIII. The Destruction of Lebanon and Iran

The pattern extends to Lebanon and Iran.

In southern Lebanon, the Israeli military has used white phosphorus – a chemical that ignites on contact with oxygen and burns at over 850°C. Farmers report that trees, fields, and entire orchards have been burned.

In March 2026, Israel bombed 30 oil storage sites and a refinery in Tehran, creating a cloud of black, acid rain that fell over the city. Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, warned: “This pollution will not only affect people, but also animals, soil and groundwater in a vicious circle that will have long-term effects.”

The destruction of Iranian infrastructure, including a virus research facility, combined with petrochemicals, high explosives, depleted uranium, and white phosphorus, creates conditions for novel disease emergence.

The system extracts resources – and in the process, it kills the host.

IX. The Irony of Greenwashing

The same system that extracts resources from Africa, that desecrates the dead, that builds quarantine facilities for Americans in Kenya, that bombs oil refineries and leaves toxic residue in Gaza – this system calls itself “sustainable.“

It is not.

It is the ultimate greenwashing.

The planet that hosts the flags is destroyed. The children are poisoned. The water is contaminated. The future is mortgaged.

But the profits continue.

X. A Primer on Viruses and the Extraction System

Viruses do not emerge from nowhere. They emerge from pressure.

· Bushmeat hunting – driven by poverty and resource extraction – brings humans into contact with zoonotic pathogens.

· Deforestation – driven by mining, logging, and agriculture – displaces animals and increases human-wildlife contact.

· Climate change – driven by fossil fuel extraction – alters the range of disease vectors.

· Conflict – driven by resource competition – destroys healthcare infrastructure and creates refugee populations.

The extraction system does not merely fail to prevent pandemics. It creates them.

The same logic that extracts coltan from Congo, that builds quarantine facilities in Kenya, that bombs oil refineries in Iran – this logic is the engine of disease emergence.

It treats the host as disposable. And when the host dies, it moves on.

XI. Conclusion: The Only Cure Is to Stop the Extraction

The Kenyans are not disposable. The Congolese are not disposable. The Palestinians are not disposable. The Lebanese are not disposable. The Iranians are not disposable.

The Americans are not more valuable.

The system that acts as if they are – the system of extraction, of double standards, of colonial logic – is not a conspiracy. It is a structure.

But demands – when they are not grounded in mutual respect and a positive relationship – are empty.

And emptiness – as we have seen – is not a solution. It is a consequence.

The only cure is to stop the extraction.

Not with violence – with clarity. If you don’t understand the flawed logic of extraction , read Karl Max, if Marx offends , read Dickens – Oliver Twist – same message, different cover.

Andrew Klein

References

1. BBC News. (2026, May 28). Kenya court halts US plans to open Ebola quarantine facility.

2. BMJ. (2025, October 12). Children’s Environmental Health under Siege.

3. Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung. (2025). Democratic Republic of the Congo: Economic situation.

4. Swissinfo. (2025, September 16). UN experts warn Congo’s conflict minerals slipping into global market.

5. New York Times. (2026, May 29). Kenyan Court Suspends Plans for Ebola Quarantine Unit for Americans.

6. The BMJ. (2025, October 9). Children’s Environmental Health under Siege.

7. PreventionWeb. (2014, November 3). To stop Ebola’s spread in West Africa, target funerals.

8. nd-aktuell. (2026, March 25). Kriegsopfer Umwelt: Verbrannte Erde und saurer Regen.