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MONROVIA, Liberia — Some people are swimming in and out of the Ebola quarantine zone in this seaside capital. One man slips out every day to reach his job at a Western embassy. Another has turned his living room into a tollbooth, charging others to escape through his apartment at the edge of the cordoned area. Countless others have used a different method: bribing their way out with fees that soldiers determine according to a person’s appearance, circumstances and even gender.
利比里亚蒙罗维亚——在这座海滨都城，有些人正在游泳出入埃博拉病毒隔离区。一名男子每天都溜出隔离区，前往他工作的一个西方使馆。还有一名男子，他的公寓位于警戒线的边缘，一些人想穿过这里，逃离隔离区，他就在自己的起居室里设点收费。此外还有数不清的人，采用了另外一个方法：贿赂士兵，让他们网开一面；士兵则根据一个人的外表、经济情况，甚至性别来决定费用高低。
Christian Verre, a 26-year-old clothing salesman, sneaked out through an abandoned building with his girlfriend, Alice Washington, 21, and eight friends. “Go back! Go back!” soldiers and police officers yelled, he recalled, but the conversation quickly took on a different turn: “What do you got?”
克里斯蒂安·维利(Christian Verre)是一名26岁的服装销售员，他曾和21岁的女友爱丽丝·华盛顿(Alice Washington)以及八个朋友一起，经由一座废弃的建筑物偷偷溜出。“回去！回去！”士兵和警察大喊，他回忆说，但他们的话锋很快就变了：“你有多少东西？”
Those carrying goods handed over more than $8, Mr. Verre said. Traveling light, he was charged $4.25 for his girlfriend and about $6 for himself, “because I’m a man.” The couple now share a shack a few blocks outside West Point, the vast, sprawling slum that was placed under an Ebola quarantine last week.
那些携带物品的人，缴纳了8美元（约合人民币50元）多一点，维利说。他和女友是轻装上路的，女友被收了4.25美元，自己则被收了6美元，“因为我是男人。”这对情侣现在住在一个窝棚里，和西点(West Point)相距几条街；西点是一片广阔、连绵的贫民窟，上周被划为埃博拉隔离区。
“I didn’t want to stay in West Point for 21 days,” he said, referring to Ebola’s maximum incubation period. “I wouldn’t die of Ebola but of hunger.”
“我可不想在西点待上21天，”他说，21天是埃博拉病毒的最长潜伏期。“我不会因为埃博拉死掉，但我会饿死的。”
The five-month outbreak here in West Africa, already worse than all other Ebola epidemics combined, is for the first time spreading uncontrollably in a major city — one in which a third of Liberia’s 4.5 million people is estimated to rub shoulders, often uneasily. Though Ebola reached Monrovia three months after its appearance in the rural north, the city has become, in a few short weeks, a major focal point of the epidemic.
历史上所有爆发的埃博拉疫情，加在一起也不如西非这五个月的程度严重，这是它首次在一个主要城市里失控蔓延——利比里亚总人口为450万，蒙罗维亚占了其中三分之一，他们心情不快地在这里与彼此近距离接触着。虽然埃博拉在北方农村出现三个月之后才扩散到了蒙罗维亚，但在短短几周内，这座城市就成为了本次疫情一大重灾区。
The outbreak has overwhelmed the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the admiration of leaders around the world. But her management of Liberia has long drawn criticism at home, and now her handling of the Ebola epidemic has presented her with a political crisis that is galvanizing her opposition.
疫情的爆发让利比里亚现政府手足无措；总统埃伦·约翰逊·瑟利夫(Ellen Johnson Sirleaf)曾获得诺贝尔和平奖，受到各国领导人的钦佩，但是她管理利比里亚的方式早已在国内引发批评，现在她应对埃博拉疫情的做法，更是引起了一场政治危机，反对她的人正在闻风而动。
“We suffering! No food, Ma, no eat. We beg you, Ma!” one man yelled at Ms. Johnson Sirleaf as she visited West Point this week, surrounded by concentric circles of heavily armed guards, some linking arms and wearing surgical gloves.
“我们正在遭受煎熬！没有食物，妈妈，没有吃的。我们求求你了，妈妈！”本周约翰逊·瑟利夫探访西点时，一名男子朝着她大喊。全副武装的警卫一圈一圈地围在她的周围，一些警卫挽着手臂，戴着外科手套。
“We want to go out!” yet another pleaded. “We want to be free, Mama, please.”
“我们要出去！”其他人恳求道。“我们要自由，妈妈，求你了。”
International Ebola experts and her own health officials advised against imposing the quarantine in West Point, worried that it would antagonize a population whose cooperation the government desperately needs to stop the epidemic. But Ms. Johnson Sirleaf sided with the army, which was the strongest proponent of the quarantine and took the lead in enforcing it, especially in the first two days.
研究埃博拉的外国专家，以及她自己的卫生官员，都建议不要隔离西点，他们担心此举会引起人们的对抗，而政府正迫切需要这些人的合作来控制疫情。但约翰逊·瑟利夫站在了军队一边，军队不仅是隔离措施最强烈的支持方，而且还牵头实施了隔离，特别是在最初两天。
“Putting the police and the army in charge of the quarantine was the worst thing you could do,” said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a Congolese doctor who helped identify the Ebola virus in the 1970s, battled many outbreaks in Central Africa and has been visiting Monrovia to advise the government. “You must make the people inside the quarantine zone feel that they are being helped, not oppressed.”
“让警察和军队来负责隔离，没什么事比这更糟了，”让-雅克·穆延贝(Jean-Jacques Muyembe)博士说；他是一名刚果医生，20世纪70年代帮助查明了埃博拉病毒，曾在中非参加过很多次抗击埃博拉疫情的斗争，目前在蒙罗维亚为政府献计献策。“你必须让隔离区里的人觉得，他们正在获得帮助，而不是遭到压制。”
Isolating communities has succeeded in some rural areas in past outbreaks in Central Africa. But the quarantine of an entire urban neighborhood, where an estimated 60,000 to 120,000 people are crammed into crumbling shacks, has proved to be more than just porous. It has also led to deadly clashes with soldiers and may even be helping spread the disease, experts say, forcing people to crowd together for basic humanitarian aid, like food relief.
之前中非爆发疫情时，隔离社区的做法在一些农村地区取得过成功。但西点地处市区，估计有6到12万人挤在那里摇摇欲坠的窝棚里，事实已经证明，对这样整整一个城市地区进行隔离，除了漏洞百出之外，还有其他问题。专家们说，隔离还导致了人们与士兵之间发生致命冲突，甚至有可能助长了这种疾病的传播，因为在获取基本的人道主义援助，比如食品救济时，人们不得不挤在一起。
Cordoned off from the city, young men in West Point squeeze together in dense lines for rice and water, pushing and shoving, sweat mixing, saliva flying, blood sometimes spilling. One morning, a man in a wheelchair trying to cut to the front was beaten, stripped and left sprawled in the middle of the road, urinating over himself.
警戒线将西点与城市其他部分隔开，隔离区内的年轻男子们在挤在一起，密密匝匝地排着队，等待领取大米和水，他们推推搡搡、汗水四洒、唾沫横飞，有时还会发生流血事件。一天早晨，一个坐轮椅的男子试图插队，结果挨了打，衣服被剥下，趴在路中间小便失禁。
“The quarantine is going to worsen the spread of Ebola,” said Dr. Muyembe, the director of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. “It’s difficult to understand the motivation behind it. It’s simply not a good strategy.”
“隔离会加剧埃博拉的蔓延，”穆延贝博士说，他是刚果民主共和国金沙萨的国家生物医学研究所(National Institute for Biomedical Research)的主任。“难以理解这个策略背后的动机是什么。但它就是不好。”
Lewis Brown, the Liberian minister of information, said the president made the decision based on both health and security concerns. Though Ebola has been spreading throughout other parts of the city, he said, the government singled out West Point because of its dense population and its potential for political instability, as shown when residents recently stormed an Ebola holding center that they did not want in the neighborhood.
利比里亚信息部长路易斯·布朗(Lewis Brown)表示，总统基于对健康和安全的考虑做出了这个决定。虽然埃博拉也在该城市的其他部分蔓延，他说，但政府挑选了西点来隔离，因为那里人口密集，可能会出现政治动荡，最近发生的一起事件就说明了这一点：那里的居民冲击了一个埃博拉病患收容中心，因为他们不希望西点有这样的中心。
“We’re not saying that Ebola is any more present in West Point than other places in the country — that’s not the argument we’re making,” Mr. Brown said. “But the potential is in the size of the area and the interaction with the city itself.”
“我们不是说，目前西点的埃博拉疫情比国内其他地方的更猖獗——我们不是这个意思，”布朗说。“但是，从西点的规模大小，以及它与城市本身之间的往来状况来看，糟糕的情况有可能发生。”
He added: “We’re not claiming to be experts on Ebola. We’ve never had to deal with this kind of thing, but we’ve always had to deal with our people. We understand our people more than we understand this disease.”
他还说：“我们没有自称是埃博拉方面的专家。我们之前从来没有处理过这类事情，但我们一直都在和本国民众打交道。我们对民众的了解，多过我们对这种疾病的了解。”
Ms. Johnson Sirleaf has made no public statement since the start of the quarantine and the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old West Point boy, Shakie Kamara, who was caught in a battle between soldiers and men trying to break out of the quarantine zone.
隔离开始之后，在士兵和试图冲破隔离区的民众之间发生的一次冲突中，15岁的西点男孩萨克·卡马拉(Shakie Kamara)遭枪击身亡。总统约翰逊·瑟利夫从隔离开始到现在，一直没有发表任何公开声明。
During her visit to West Point, she apologized to his family and looked at those calling for help with sympathy in her eyes, saying little. Walking several feet behind her, a man in a checkered shirt pulled out Liberian dollar bills from a backpack with his gloved hand and tossed the money to the loudest protesters. The money silenced their criticism but immediately set off fistfights.
在探访西点时，她对他的家人表达了歉意，并向那些要求帮助的人投去同情的目光，但没说太多话。在她的身后数英尺的地方，一个身穿格子衬衫、戴着手套的男子，从背包里掏出利比里亚钞票，抛给声音最响亮的抗议者。这些钱虽然让他们停止了出口指责，但立刻又引起了争夺打斗。
A Toyota Land Cruiser took the president out of West Point. Her guards and entourage followed on foot, tossing their used gloves on the ground on their way out.
一辆丰田陆地巡洋舰(Toyota Land Cruiser)载着总统离开了西点。警卫和随从们步行跟随在她车后，在离开途中，他们把自己用过的手套扔在路上。
An Explosive Outbreak
疫情猖獗
No one knows yet why Ebola has succeeded in spreading at such an alarming rate here in the capital. Ebola has reached the capital cities of Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Conakry, Guinea — the two other West African nations most affected by the current outbreak — but the disease has been more effectively contained in those cities.
没有人知道为什么在利比里亚首都，埃博拉疫情会以如此惊人的速度蔓延。埃博拉疫情也扩散到了塞拉利昂首都弗里敦，以及几内亚首都科纳克里——本次疫情最严重的另外两个西非国家——但那些城市均已经更有效地控制了疫情。
The first cases in Monrovia were reported only in June. Infections have multiplied quickly here in recent weeks, illustrating the speed with which Ebola can spread in a major urban area. The county containing Monrovia quickly registered the nation’s biggest death toll — now 274 deaths out of a national total of 754, according to the Ministry of Health.
蒙罗维亚的第一批病例今年6月才出现。但在最近几周，感染人数成倍增加，显示了埃博拉可以以怎样的速度在主要城市地区蔓延。蒙罗维亚所在的县迅速创下了该国最高的死亡人数——卫生部的资料显示，该县的死亡人数现在达到274人，全国死亡人数为754人。
“The Conakry outbreaks have been very small, and they haven’t exploded in Freetown,” said Dr. Armand Sprecher, an Ebola expert for Doctors Without Borders here. “So something is different in Monrovia. It’s something in the disease transmission behaviors in Monrovia that has done this. That’s my guess. We’ve never seen this kind of explosion in an urban environment before.”
“在科纳克里，疫情爆发的规模非常小，弗里敦的情况也不严重，”阿曼德·斯普雷彻(Armand Sprecher)博士说，他是埃博拉方面的专家，为这里的无国界医生(Doctors Without Borders)组织工作。“所以在蒙罗维亚，有些不一样的特征。蒙罗维亚在疾病传播方面的特征，导致了疫情爆发的程度不同。这是我的猜测。我们以前从来没有见过，埃博拉疫情在城市环境中这样猖獗地爆发。”
As the situation worsened in the capital in mid-August, the government established the city’s first Ebola holding center in West Point, Monrovia’s biggest slum and political opposition stronghold. Locals ransacked and closed down the center within days.
随着8月中旬首都的状况发生恶化，政府在西点开设了全市首家埃博拉收容中心；西点是蒙罗维亚最大的贫民窟，也是政治反对派的大本营。没过几天，当地人就洗劫并关闭了这家中心。
On Aug. 20, under the president’s orders, the army and police placed West Point under quarantine — the first time, some experts say, that a quarantine was attempted on such a scale. West Point reacted with fury: hundreds of young men tried to storm through the barricades. As soldiers fired live rounds to drive them back, the 15-year-old boy, Shakie, was killed. Only heavy rain starting around noon put a stop to the riots.
8月20日，军队和警察遵照总统的命令，把西点隔离开来——一些专家说，这是首次进行如此大规模隔离的尝试。西点做出了愤怒的回应：成百上千名年轻男子试图冲破路障。为了将他们驱赶回去，士兵们发射了实弹，导致15岁的男孩卡马拉中弹身亡。直到中午下起瓢泼大雨，这场骚乱才告一段落。
In rural areas, quarantining communities can work if they are small enough and unified under political or traditional leadership, experts say.
在农村地区，如果地方足够小，而且可以在政治领导力或传统领导力的影响下团结起来，隔离社区的办法是可以奏效的，专家们说。
“What is important is for the people to participate in the process; otherwise it becomes too difficult to implement effectively,” said Dr. Nestor Ndayimirije, the World Health Organization’s director for Liberia.
“重要的是，民众要参与这一进程；否则隔离就会变得很困难，无法有效实施”，世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)在利比里亚的主管内斯特·德米瑞吉(Nestor Ndayimirije)博士说。
A week into the quarantine of West Point, life has been getting harder for those without the means or connections to get out. The price of goods that find their way into the quarantine zone — rice, water, coal, prepaid cellphone cards, soap — has doubled.
西点被隔离一周后，对于那些找不到办法和人脉离开这里的居民来说，生活变得越发艰难起来。大米、水、煤、预付费手机卡、肥皂等流入隔离区的商品，价格已经翻了一番。
“People are fighting for food to eat,” said Victor Nwanodu, who owns one of West Point’s most popular public toilets and baths. Business has dropped, he said, as people can no longer afford to pay for a hot bath.
“人们在争抢食物吃，”维克多·万诺多(Victor Nwanodu)说，西点人气最旺的公共卫生间和浴室之一就是他开的。但浴室生意已经下滑，他表示，因为人们没有余钱来洗上一个热水澡了。
Serena Wallo, 31, was one of a few dozen people whose houses were washed away this week along West Point’s heavily eroded shoreline. Unable to leave the quarantine zone, her family now has to stay with friends in the area, in the kind of overcrowded conditions where Ebola thrives.
在西点一些遭到严重侵蚀的海岸线上，本周有几十人的房屋被冲毁，31岁的塞丽娜·瓦诺(Serena Wallo)就是受灾者之一。由于无法离开隔离区，她和家人现在只能投靠西点的朋友，在那种拥挤的居住条件下，埃博拉病毒很容易传播。
“I’m not happy with the government,” Ms. Wallo said. “They are treating us like we are slaves.”
“我对政府不满，”瓦诺说。“他们对待我们的态度，就好像我们是奴隶一样。”
