I'm professor Hans Rosling.
I'm standing on the roof of my hotel in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.
Now it's a peaceful city, but just a little more than 10 years ago
ended a cruel civil war here.
After that, the economy of the country was broken,
health services and schools were down;
but now, in the last ten years, things had been improving:
there were a fast economic growth,
people were coming out of extreme poverty,
and health was improving.
Ebola put a stop to that.
The relation between extreme poverty and Ebola go both ways.
Extreme poverty was a major reason
to why the outbreak of Ebola became so huge here:
people live so crammed in the slum here,
they don't have water and sanitation.
When someone started to vomit and got sick,
the whole family got infected!
And now, when Ebola is here,
it stops businesses, economy comes to a standstill,
people lose their job and poverty gets worse!
So, in order for Liberia to fight the extreme poverty,
they must start by fighting Ebola.
And when Ebola is gone - because it has to go down to zero -
the best way to prevent Ebola from coming back
is to fight and put an end to extreme poverty.
Now, for the rest of us, living in other parts of the world,
at better economic levels, we also have a reason to fight Ebola,
because it is a global security reason of immense proportions!
And I have grandchildren: I don't want them to live in a world
where Ebola virus travels around the world.
So how could I stop it?
There's no better way of stopping Ebola than come here in West Africa,
and fight it side by side by the people in these countries.
And my experience here in Liberia is very positive:
there's a fantastic response against Ebola among the professionals,
the government, and especially the people themselves.