On 27 April 2023, this webinar, featuring a panel of experts, will draw on new evidence from research on Mpox in Nigeria, as well as wider research on national, regional and global perspectives on epidemic preparedness and response, to explore questions such as how can global efforts interconnect more effectively with national and regional preparedness, taking account of varying priorities and perspectives? And what can be done to strengthen community-level efforts for outbreak detection and care provision?
On Wednesday 16 November 2022 between 12:00-15:00 GMT, The Wellcome Trust collaborative Pandemics Preparedness Project is hosting Shifting Power in Pandemics, a public webinar on connecting and supporting preparedness ‘from below’. Shifting Power in Pandemics, will explore issues surrounding connecting and supporting preparedness from below and feature expert speakers from Africa, the Americas and Europe, including investigators from SSHAP.
This report is for supervisors managing ongoing Ebola outbreaks, or working on preparedness and recovery activities in regions at risk of, or affected by, Ebola epidemics. It is based on rapid and intensive ethnographic field research in Equateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, undertaken less than a month after the epidemic was declared over in July 2018. The research comprised 60 separate open-ended, semi-structured interviews with local health workers, government officials and administrators, Ebola survivors and their families, community leaders, and national and international responders.
The overall finding of the report is that an Ebola epidemic, along with the way the response itself is conducted, can have significant social, psychological, economic, and health impacts for the communities involved. By providing a close, qualitative reportage on perceptions of the epidemic and the response in Equateur Province, the report aims to render tangible the social,
Estrella Lasry, Tropical Advisor to MSF, on measures taken by the organisation to predict and prevent malaria outbreaks in emergency situations.
Although sometimes over used, the word ‘crisis’ accurately describes many challenges of today’s world, such as climage change, war and refugees, economic volatility, pandemics, and the continuing unmet needs of the poor, hungry, and neglected.
While much has been achieved — in reducing the incidence of poverty and infant mortality, especially — our bright hopes for the future could be dimmed by shocks that can overwhelm nations, international organizations, communities, and citizens.
Lyle Fearnley explores how global preparedness for emerging diseases left some places unprepared.
In the last twenty years, influenza has been considered by global health experts as a model for the emergence of new pathogens from animal reservoirs.
In the logic of zoonoses, human disease is the tip of the iceberg constituted by a wide circulation of viruses – often asymptomatic – in animals; it is often described as an “evolutionary dead-end”.
In this paper the authors seek to identify the most appropriate model for a regional co-ordination mechanism for cholera preparedness, response and prevention. The qualitative mixed-method data collection approach that was followed revealed the need for alternative solutions, including a socio-political understanding of cholera responses at different levels of scale and at different stages of an outbreak.
Important areas that need to be understood include the multiplicity of actors and the complexity of their interaction, the importance of building local capacity, the need for varying responses at different levels of scale, the need for improved inter- and intra-country co-ordination and information exchange, the importance of cultural belief systems and the impact of the media on the response to cholera outbreaks.
The Ebola outbreak currently affecting West Africa is the most serious trans-national medical emergency in modern times. It has the potential to become a global health crisis. Many of the countries affected already have weak health systems, which are now stretched to breaking point. The health authorities have a limited capacity to respond and in a context of widespread fear and misunderstanding about the nature of the disease and how to prevent it.
Alongside addressing human resourcing, health system and pharmaceutical challenges, social mobilisation is increasingly recognised as a key component of any strategy that aims to bring the Ebola outbreak under control. This helpdesk seeks to establish what lessons have been learnt from the current and previous Ebola outbreaks. It recommends good practice and makes suggestions based on the evidence for good practice and preparedness to reduce transmission and prevent further risk and exposure in affected countries.