A major challenge to outbreak control lies in early detection of viral haemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) in local community contexts during the critical initial stages of an epidemic, when risk of spreading is its highest (“the first mile”). This paper documents how a major Ebola outbreak control effort in central Uganda in 2012 was experienced from the perspective of the community. It asks to what extent the community became a resource for early detection, and identifies problems encountered with community health worker and social mobilization strategies. Analysis is based on first-hand ethnographic data from the center of a small Ebola outbreak in Luwero Country, Uganda, in 2012. Three of this paper’s authors were engaged in an 18 month period of fieldwork on community health resources when the outbreak occurred. In total, 13 respondents from the outbreak site were interviewed, along with 21 key informants and 61 focus group respondents from nearby Kaguugo Parish.
Natural disasters and disasters that directly derive from human actions, both evolving and sudden, trace the structural fault lines of the societies that they affect. Disaster outcomes disproportionately impact those with the least access to social and material resources: women and children, and people who are elderly, disabled or impoverished.
Using a disability conceptual framework,the essays in this volume focus on disasters within their social and environmental ecologies, with particular attention to the ways in which conventional disaster planning and responses ensure that existing social inequalities will be perpetuated as consequences of disasters. We argue that by foregrounding the needs of those with the fewest resources, an applied anthropology of disaster points to potential benefits to all when disaster preparedness, response, and recovery plans include the expertise of disabled people.
As of November 4, 2014, the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is confirmed to have infected 13,268 individuals, with 4,960 total deaths estimated. The global Ebola response is evolving rapidly, and as it has evolved, it has become increasingly apparent that the causes of this epidemic outbreak result from the underdevelopment of local regional healthcare systems, and several initial errors in the global Ebola response that lead to an underdevelopment of emergency response capabilities, and resulted in complications with triage, treatment, community mobilization and engagement, and communications efforts.
The steering committee of the AAA-Wenner Gren Emergency Ebola Response Workshop convened a meeting with policy makers, practitioners, donors, and NGOs involved in the global Ebola response. The goal of this meeting was to consult with a range of partners about their needs and priorities for anthropological guidance. Attendees included: the U.S.
