Policy document
Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan (PISP) Jan 2020 to Dec 2024
The Government of Sierra Leone’s plan for tackling a future influenz\a pandemic, written just before the Covid-19 outbreak.
Epidemic preparedness and response
The social and political dimensions of disease epidemics, preparedness and response.
Policy document
National Ebola Recovery Strategy for Sierra Leone 2015–2017
The Sierra Leone government’s immediate post-Ebola strategy for rebuilding the health system during and after the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic
Vaccine anxieties, vaccine preparedness: Perspectives from Africa in a Covid-19 era
Global debates about vaccines as a key element of pandemic response and future preparedness in the era of Covid-19 currently focus on questions of supply, with attention to global injustice in vaccine distribution and African countries as rightful beneficiaries of…
Research paper
Youths’ violent resistance of necropolitical landscape of COVID-19 in Nigeria’s vanishing foodscapes and waterscapes
This article interrogates the necropolitical landscape of COVID-19 in Nigeria. The article explores how the landscape emerges at the intersection of COVID-19 regime and structural violence and materializes in foodscapes and waterscapes of the country. These changes ultimately impose the…
Research paper
Xenophobia’s Contours During an Ebola Epidemic: Proximity and the Targeting of Peul Migrants in Senegal
This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia…
Research paper
Why I Have Not Taken the COVID-19 Vaccine” a Descriptive Qualitative Study of Older Adults’ Perceived Views of COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in Nigeria
Globally, the COVID-19 vaccine uptake is increasing, but slowly among older adults residing in lower and middle-income countries, including Nigeria. Following this, we explored the perceived views of older adults on the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria. Findings…
Research paper
“We are the heroes because we are ready to die for this country”: Participants’ decision-making and grounded ethics in an Ebola vaccine clinical trial
This paper reports findings from social science research carried out in Kambia, Northern Sierra Leone during first year of an Ebola vaccine trial (August 2015–July 2016). The study used a range of qualitative methods to explore participant motivations for volunteering…
Research paper
Vaccine anxieties, vaccine preparedness: Perspectives from Africa in a Covid-19 era
This study used a ‘vaccine anxieties’ framework to consider the socially-embedded reasons why people want or do not want Covid-19 vaccines, and how this intersects with the dynamics of vaccine supply, access and distribution in rapidly-unfolding epidemic situations. Whereas discourses…
Research paper
Unintended consequences of the ‘bushmeat ban’ in West Africa during the 2013-2016 Ebola virus disease epidemic.
Following the 2013-2016 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa, governments across the region imposed a ban on the hunting and consumption of meat from wild animals. This injunction was accompanied by public health messages emphasising the infectious…
Research paper
Unintended consequences of implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions for the COVID-19 response in Africa: experiences from DRC, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda
The coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic is one of the most terrifying disasters of the 21st century. The non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented to control the spread of the disease had numerous positive consequences. However, there were also unintended consequences—positively or negatively…
Research paper
The symbolic violence of ‘outbreak’: A mixed methods, quasi-experimental impact evaluation of social protection on Ebola survivor wellbeing
Despite over 28,000 reported cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the 2013-16 outbreak in West Africa, we are only beginning to trace the complex biosocial processes that have promoted its spread. Important questions remain, including the effects on survivors…
Research paper
The perceived effects of COVID-19 pandemic on female genital mutilation/cutting and child or forced marriages in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Senegal
The effects of COVID-19 on harmful traditional practices such Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and Child or Forced Marriages (CFM) have not been well documented. We examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected FGM/C and CFM in Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, and…
Research paper
The Allure of Scapegoating Return Migrants during a Pandemic
The stigmatization of Senegalese return migrants as COVID-19 vectors by fellow Senegalese during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic troubles the self/other distinction that underpins the scholarly focus on epidemics and xenophobia and encourages the broader task of exploring…
Research paper
Structural drivers of vulnerability to zoonotic disease in Africa
This paper analyses three case studies—trypanosomiasis in Zimbabwe, Ebola and Lassa fever in Sierra Leone and Rift Valley fever in Kenya — to argue that addressing the underlying structural drivers of disease vulnerability is essential for a ‘One Health’ approach…
Research paper
Qualitative exploration of health system response to COVID-19 pandemic applying the WHO health systems framework: Case study of a Nigerian state
Health systems have an important role in a multi-sector response to pandemics, as there are already concerns that COVID-19 will significantly divert limited health care resources. This study appraised the readiness and resilience of the Nigerian health system to the…
Private sector engagement in the COVID-19 response: experiences and lessons from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda
The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed health systems and precipitated coalitions between public and private sectors to address critical gaps in the response. We conducted a study to document the public and private sector partnerships and engagements to inform current and…
Political distrust and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria
This study explores the impact of political distrust on the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
Policy response to COVID-19 in Senegal: power, politics, and the choice of policy instruments
The objective of the paper is to understand how Senegal formulated its policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The response was rapid, comprising conventional policy instruments used previously for containing Ebola.
Participating in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal: trust and information
This research aims to understand the level and determinants of people’s willingness to participate in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal.
Negotiating Intersecting Precarities: COVID-19, Pandemic Preparedness and Response in Africa
This article shares findings on COVID-19 in Africa across 2020 to examine concepts and practices of epidemic preparedness and response. Amidst uncertainties about the trajectory of COVID-19, the stages of emergency response emerge in practice as interconnected.
Local disease-ecosystem-livelihood dynamics: reflections from comparative case studies in Africa
This article explores the implications for human health of local interactions between disease, ecosystems and livelihoods. Five interdisciplinary case studies addressed zoonotic diseases in African settings: Rift Valley fever (RVF) in Kenya, human African trypanosomiasis in Zambia and Zimbabwe, Lassa…
Lessons learned from engaging communities for Ebola vaccine trials in Sierra Leone: reciprocity, relatability, relationships and respect (the four R’s)
Building trust and engaging the community are important for biomedical trials. This was core to the set up and delivery of the EBOVAC-Salone and PREVAC Ebola vaccine trials in Sierra Leone during and following the 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic.…
Imagining HIV/AIDS: Morality and perceptions of personal risk in Nigeria
The disparity between people’s knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the extent to which they take measures to protect themselves is one of the most vexing issues for public health workers and social science analysts. This paper aims to explain some of…
Exploring the cultural context of HIV/AIDS pandemic in a Nigerian community: Implication for culture specific prevention programmes
The new face of Human Immune Virus (HIV)/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has earned its recognition as a social problem due to the associated devastating social and cultural consequences on the individual and the society at large. As such,…
Engaging ‘communities’: anthropological insights from the West African Ebola epidemic
This article reflects on the nature of community engagement during the Ebola epidemic and demonstrates a disjuncture between local realities and what is being imagined in post-Ebola reports about the lessons that need to be learned for the future.
COVID-19 in Senegal: Exploring the Historical Context
While many academics and popular journalists have recently addressed historical epidemics in the context of COVID-19, much of this literature concerns the history of former colonial powers rather than the history of formerly colonized states. This review finds that the…
Courting success in HIV/AIDS prevention: the challenges of addressing a concentrated epidemic in Senegal
This article presents findings from a study of HIV/AIDS programmes for urban sex workers in Dakar, Senegal. The objective of the research was to assess HIV prevention and treatment efforts to date, and to identify challenges that must be overcome…
Conjuring Biosecurity in the Post-Ebola Kissi Triangle: The Magic of Paperwork in a Frontier Clinic.
This article considers the increasing centrality of biosecurity and epidemiological surveillance as key priorities for the Sierra Leonean health care system after the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
Civilian perception of the role of the military in Nigeria’s 2014 Ebola outbreak and health-related responses in the North East region
Civilian–military relations play an important yet under-researched role in low-income and middle-income country epidemic response. One crucial component of civilian–military relations is defining the role of the military. This paper evaluates the role of Nigerian military during the 2014–2016 West…
Challenges in Implementing the National Health Response to COVID-19 in Senegal
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, many epidemiological or anthropological studies have been published. However, few studies have yet been conducted to understand the implementation of State interventions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In Senegal, the national…
Ebola-Myths, Realities, and Structural Violence
This briefing examines responses to the Ebola outbreak and offers a different set of explanations, rooted in the history of the region and the political economy of global health and development.
Behavioural and emotional responses to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria: a narrative review
This paper reviews the behavioural and emotional responses to the 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in Nigeria as documented in scientific publications and portrayed in the media between 21 July 2014 and 30 March 2015.
Accepted monitoring or endured quarantine? Ebola contacts’ perceptions in Senegal
During the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic, transmission chains were controlled through contact tracing, i.e., identification and follow-up of people exposed to Ebola cases. WHO recommendations for daily check-ups of physical symptoms with social distancing for 21 days were unevenly…
Case study
Strengthening health information surveillance: Implementing community-based surveillance in Sudan
This case study explores the 2018–22 implementation of a national community-based surveillance programme in Sudan designed to meet critical needs of the existing health surveillance system.
Briefing
Community-Based Surveillance in Public Health
Recent large-scale epidemics and pandemics have demonstrated the importance of engaging communities as partners in preventing, detecting and responding to public health emergencies. Community-based surveillance (CBS), which relies on communities to report public health information, can be an important part…
Multimedia
Views of mpox in Nigeria
This photo story explores how mpox is felt and understood by different people in Nigeria – including those with symptoms, the wider community and healthcare workers.
