Assessing Key Considerations for Burial Practices, Death and Mourning in Epidemics
Highlighting key considerations for rapidly appraising burial/funerary practices and beliefs around death/dying during an epidemic.
Highlighting key considerations for rapidly appraising burial/funerary practices and beliefs around death/dying during an epidemic.
Literature on cultural practices for burial and care for the sick among individual ethnic groups in South Sudan was very limited. However, it clearly points to the importance of proper burials among all ethnic groups: these typically entail washing the body of the deceased; it can take several days before burial takes place; and graves are often located within or close to family homesteads. South Sudan is incredibly diverse with over 60 different ethnic groups, within each of which there are further subdivisions. The largest ethnic group, the Dinka, for example, are divided into at least 25 ethnic sub-groups that each have their own distinct cultural practices, dialects and traditions (Cultural Atlas, n.d.). Given the exceptional diversity of the social landscape of South Sudan, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a dearth of literature on the cultural practices of individual ethnic groups.
Questionnaires for rapid quantitative surveys and qualitative appraisals of burial and funeral practices in the context of an Ebola outbreak.
Social Anthropologist Julienne Anoko visits communities to encourage safe and dignified burial. Infection of the Ebola virus can occur from touching the bodies of those who have died from Ebola virus disease (EVD).
Key socio-cultural considerations concerning events related to death, burial, funerals (rites or ceremonies), and mourning.
Rift Valley Fever (RVF), is a viral zoonotic disease transmitted by Aedes and Culex mosquitoes. in Kenya, its occurrence is associated with increased rains. in Baringo County, RVF was first reported in 2006-2007 resulting in 85 human cases and 5 human deaths, besides livestock losses and livelihood disruptions. This study sought to investigate the county’s current RVF risk status.
A cross-sectional study on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of RVF was conducted through a mixed methods approach utilizing a questionnaire survey (n = 560) and 26 focus group discussions (n = 231). Results indicate that study participants had little knowledge of RVF causes, its signs and symptoms and transmission mechanisms to humans and livestock. However, most of them indicated that a person could be infected with zoonotic diseases through consumption of meat (79.2%) and milk (73.7%) or contact with blood (40%) from sick animals.
Safely burying Ebola infected individuals is acknowledged to be important for controlling Ebola epidemics and was a major component of the 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola response. Yet, in order to understand the impact of safe burial programs it is necessary to elucidate the role of unsafe burials in sustaining chains of Ebola transmission and how the risk posed by activities surrounding unsafe burials, including care provided at home prior to death, vary with human behavior and geography.
This helpdesk focuses on the impact of traditional healers, witch doctors and burial attendants on ebola in West Africa. It seeks to establish if there is a difference between witch doctors, herbalists and traditional healers in terms of when people see them and the kind of treatment they provide.
It goes on to explore the roles of these actors in preparing bodies for burial and at funerals. It provides information on secret societies. The report goes on to explore behaviour change. It provides information on payment of traditional healers as a leverage point.
The international response to Ebola has been decried for being ‘too slow, too little, too late’. As well as racing to respond, we need to consider what has happened over the past decades to leave exposed fault lines that enabled Ebola to move so rapidly across boundaries of people’s bodies, villages, towns and countries. Gender is important to these fault lines in two related spheres. Women and men are differentially affected by Ebola, with women in the region taking on particular roles and responsibilities as they care for the ill and bury the dead, and as they navigate ever-diminishing livelihood options and increasingly limited health resources available to pregnant women.
Furthermore, structural preconditions in ‘development’ itself have deepened these gendered fault lines. A currently powerful set of ideas in gender and development discourse locates certain patterns of ‘non-modern’ gender relationships as the root cause of poverty and underdevelopment.