Responding effectively to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics requires a certain amount of knowledge use and carry-over from one context to another. However, no two health emergencies are ever precisely the same. The variation in social context, political setting, aetiological agent, time horizon, geography, and a whole host of other factors, makes each emergency unique. Further to this, global or national emergencies are often composed of emergencies in multiple localities, each with their own complex challenges and problems. This diversity in response contexts makes using knowledge from other areas of an emergency, or from past emergencies, difficult. This SSHAP Case Study draws on an investigation of lessons from the 2013-16 West African Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) crisis.
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