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The Ebola Epidemic in West Africa

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-12-30

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 0309450063

The most recent Ebola epidemic that began in late 2013 alerted the entire world to the gaps in infectious disease emergency preparedness and response. The regional outbreak that progressed to a significant public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in a matter of months killed 11,310 and infected more than 28,616. While this outbreak bears some unique distinctions to past outbreaks, many characteristics remain the same and contributed to tragic loss of human life and unnecessary expenditure of capital: insufficient knowledge of the disease, its reservoirs, and its transmission; delayed prevention efforts and treatment; poor control of the disease in hospital settings; and inadequate community and international responses. Recognizing the opportunity to learn from the countless lessons of this epidemic, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in March 2015 to discuss the challenges to successful outbreak responses at the scientific, clinical, and global health levels. Workshop participants explored the epidemic from multiple perspectives, identified important questions about Ebola that remained unanswered, and sought to apply this understanding to the broad challenges posed by Ebola and other emerging pathogens, to prevent the international community from being taken by surprise once again in the face of these threats. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa

Author: Constantine N. Nana PhD

Publisher: Archway Publishing

Published: 2016-09-09

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1480835978

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The Zaire Ebola virus appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared into thin air after killing scores of humans in West Africa. In The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, author Constantine N. Nana attempts to better understand the outbreak and answer the question: why? Through meticulous research, combing through misleading media reports and equivocal academic papers, Nana takes a close look at the chain of events. He raises a series of questions: Why were there Ebola experts in the region shortly before the outbreak? Why did the Sierra Leonean government order a research institution to stop Ebola testing during the outbreak? Why did the United States government decline to renew funding for one of the research programs during the crisis? Why did one of the key researchers state that the epidemic may have been caused by a contaminated needle? Did the initial outbreak really originate with a two-year-old child in an isolated area? In The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, Nana challenges standard explanations of the virus origins and demonstrates that many questions remain unanswered.

Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds

Author: Paul Farmer

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2020-11-17

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 0374716986

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“Paul Farmer brings his considerable intellect, empathy, and expertise to bear in this powerful and deeply researched account of the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014. It is hard to imagine a more timely or important book.” —Bill and Melinda Gates "[The] history is as powerfully conveyed as it is tragic . . . Illuminating . . . Invaluable." —Steven Johnson, The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand—Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa’s chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not – and the region’s health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic

Author: The World Bank

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2014-11-26

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 1464804222

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Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact. This report provides a systematic analysis of the channels of economic impact and the likely magnitude of that impact for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, as well as West Africa as a whole.

Risk Communication for the Future

Author: Mathilde Bourrier

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-27

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 3319740989

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The conventional approach to risk communication, based on a centralized and controlled model, has led to blatant failures in the management of recent safety related events. In parallel, several cases have proved that actors not thought of as risk governance or safety management contributors may play a positive role regarding safety. Building on these two observations and bridging the gap between risk communication and safety practices leads to a new, more societal perspective on risk communication, that allows for smart risk governance and safety management. This book is Open Access under a CC-BY licence.

Ebola's Curse

Author: Michael B.A. Oldstone

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2017-07-18

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0128138890

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Ebola‘s Curse: 2013-2016 Outbreak in West Africa is about hemorrhagic fever viruses, especially Ebola, its initial origin in central Africa 1976, its unprecedented appearance in West Africa in 2013. The book records in sequence and detective style how the initial outbreak of Ebola from the index case in rural Guinea traveled to Sierra Leone, the work and fate of those working in the Kenema Government Hospital (KGH) isolation ward in Sierra Leone. The book provides vignettes of the three main players involved with Ebola at KGH, Sheik Khan, Pardis Sabeti, and Robert Garry. Khan was the head of the unit, declared a national hero by his Sierra Leone government. He died fighting Ebola and was/is recognized in the USA by American societies by awards created for his historic work and death. Pardis Sabeti, a geneticist from Harvard and Broad MIT Institute, who was honored as a "Scientist of the Year" by Time Magazine and the Smithsonian Institute. Robert Garry, head of the operation to fight hemorrhagic fevers and Ebola, shuttled between Tulane University, KGH, and The White House to make aware through the press and others the dilemma and tragedy that was unfolding, and the need to obtain additional medical and health care support and supplies. Sabeti and Garry currently work with Oldstone on Ebola at KGH and thus personal communication and knowledge was/is available to the author for the book. Includes perspectives from the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa Provides a detailed overview of the origins of Ebola virus through present day discoveries Written with an integrative approach, incorporating scientific research with insights from the field on Public Health and Medical History

Ebola

Author: Dorothy H. Crawford

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0198759991

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First discovered in 1976, and long regarded as an easily manageable virus affecting isolated rural communities, Ebola rocketed to world prominence in 2014 as a deadly epidemic swept through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in West Africa. Thousands of people died as the extraordinarily contagious disease spread rapidly from villages to urban centres. Initial quarantine responses proved often too little and too late, and the medical infrastructure of the affected countries struggled to cope. By August 2014, several months after the start of the outbreak, the WHO declared the epidemic a public health emergency and international aid teams and volunteers began to pour in. But halting the epidemic proved to be hugely challenging, not only in terms of the practicalities of dealing with the sheer numbers of patients carrying the highly infectious virus, but in dealing with social and cultural barriers. The author, Dorothy Crawford, visited Sierra Leone while the epidemic was ongoing and met with those on the frontline in the fight against the virus. In Ebola Crawford combines personal accounts from these brave medical workers with the latest scientific reports to tell the story of the epidemic as it unfolded, and how it has changed our understanding of the virus. She looks at its origin and spread, the international response, and its devastating legacy to the health of those living in the three worst affected countries. She describes the efforts to prevent international spread, the treatment options for Ebola, including the drug and vaccine trials that eventually got underway in 2015, and the sensitive issue of running trials of experimental therapies during a lethal epidemic. Our understanding of the Ebola virus continues to develop as long-term health problems and complications following recovery from the disease are being identified. Epidemics of Ebola or other dangerous microbes will continue to threaten the world regularly. Already concerns have been raised by the possible impact of the Zika virus. What lessons have been learnt from Ebola? How, asks Crawford, might we prevent a repeat of the awful suffering seen in 2014-16?

The Politics of Fear

Author: Michiel Hofman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-01-05

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0190624493

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The 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was an unprecedented medical and political emergency that cast an unflattering light on multiple corners of government and international response. Fear, not rational planning, appeared to drive many decisions made at population and leadership levels, which in turn brought about a response that was as uneven as it was unprecedented: entire populations were decimated or destroyed, vaccine trials were fast-tracked, health staff died, untested medications were used (or not used) in controversial ways, humanitarian workers returned home to enforced isolation, and military was employed to sometimes disturbing ends. The epidemic revealed serious fault lines at all levels of theory and practice of global public health: national governments were shown to be helpless and unprepared for calamity at this scale; the World Health Organization was roundly condemned for its ineffectiveness; the US quietly created its own African CDC a year after the epidemic began. Amid such chaos, Médecins sans Frontières was forced to act with unprecdented autonomy -- and amid great criticism -- in responding to the disease, taking unprecedented steps in deploying services and advocating for international aid. The Politics of Fear provides a primary documentary resource for recounting and learning from the Ebola epidemic. Comprising eleven topic-based chapters and four eyewitness vignettes from both MSF- and non-MSF-affiliated contributors (all of whom have been given access to MSF Ebola archives from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia for research), it aims to provide a politically agnostic account of the defining health event of the 21st century so far, one that will hopefully inform current opinions and future responses.