Contextual social, political and livelihood understandings, factors affecting care-seeking and challenges to vaccination rollout were among the on-the-ground realities relating to mpox spread that experts discussed.
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?
A new report from the Institute of Development Studies, UK, calls on world leaders to look beyond the conventional staples of the public health toolkit as they draw up a new WHO global treaty on pandemics.
This research was commissioned by the EVD Preparedness Consortium comprising Save the Children, Concern Worldwide and Internews in South Sudan. It provides information on community perceptions about the Ebola outbreak and preparedness activities in Yei River State. The study was commissioned based on the recognition of the importance of integrating social sciences into Ebola outbreak and preparedness activities from the West Africa Ebola outbreak (2013-2016) and subsequent outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2018 and 2019.
It provides granular information about community’s perceptions of activities, particularly disease surveillance, infection prevention and control (IPC), risk communication and community engagement. These details will help the EVD Preparedness Consortium to ensure a localised and agile response to the risk of Ebola in South Sudan. The formative qualitative study was conducted between August and September 2019 in Yei River State.
This review focuses on the evidence on Ebola preparedness in South Sudan through an anthropological lens, looking at informal and traditional health care systems.
It presents the evidence on how these can be utilised for surveillance, behaviour change communication, and vaccinations in the case of an Ebola outbreak, including: establishing surveillance of these services and how healers would be able to provide alerts about possible cases in the event of an Ebola outbreak in South Sudan; evidence on how to provide information to traditional healers on how they can protect themselves from infection using simple methods, and to stop them becoming ‘superspreaders’ of the virus, and how to potentially vaccinate or provide information on vaccines to these healers alongside other health workers.
The main linguistic groupings and ethnic groups that are predominant in areas considered to be at highest risk of Ebola outbreak in South Sudan are: Zande,
This practical field guide brings together lessons learned from Oxfam’s past interventions in the prevention and control of cholera, and other related guidance. The aim is to provide a quick, step-by-step guide to inform cholera outbreak interventions and ensure public health programmes that are rapid, community-based, well-tailored, and gender and diversity aware.
They will enable both public health teams and programme managers to undertake necessary preparations to prevent cholera outbreaks from occurring and to respond effectively when they have occurred. They have been specifically designed to fit the cholera outbreak curve, depicting key activities in each critical phase before, during and after an outbreak. They can also be adapted to suit other water- and sanitation-related outbreaks, such as Typhoid, Hepatitis E, and dysentery, as well as other WASH-related diarrhoeal outbreaks
The enduring Ebola epidemic has taught the world some hard lessons over the last 12 months, which we must take to heart. Despite early warnings, and the extraordinary efforts of local healthcare workers and private medical humanitarian organisations, the epidemic has exposed the institutional failures that saw the Ebola outbreak spiral far out of control, with tragic and avoidable consequences. In particular, we should reflect on the role civil society must play in response, and how it can spur on mandated international bodies to shake off their paralysis and act decisively during crises, instead of leaving it to private organisations, such as MSF, to respond.
This is the review of the Ebola Crisis Appeal Response in Sierra Leone of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) that unites 13 of the largest UK humanitarian charities to raise funds in response to major international humanitarian crises.
The review team consisted of an external team leader, a DEC member representative and the DEC chief executive with complementary roles and expertise. Fieldwork took place from 8th to 18th February. The team visited Freetown and Western Area, Port Loko Bombali, and Tonkolili. They used semi-structured questionnaires to conduct 19 focus groups in the communities visited. Altogether they spoke with 150 female and 148 male beneficiaries, 30 male and 11 female NGO staff, 11 government staff and 12 partner staff and two members of the security forces.
Specific areas of enquiry of this review are:
Community engagement
Programme relevance
Organisational learning and capacity development.
It took the threat of a global health crisis to illustrate the failings of Africa’s health systems. Resilient health systems, free at the point of use, are evidently a global public good. They are essential for the provision of universal health coverage and for a prompt response to outbreaks of disease.
Resilient health systems require long-term investment in the six key elements that are required for a resilient system: an adequate numbers of trained health workers; available medicines; robust health information systems, including surveillance; appropriate infrastructure; sufficient public financing and a strong public sector to deliver equitable, quality services. Global investment in research and development for medical products is also critical.
This issue of Limn on “Ebola’s Ecologies” examines how the 2014 Ebola outbreak has put the norms, practices, and institutional logics of global health into question, and examines the new assemblages that are being forged in its wake. The contributions focus on various domains of thought and practice that have been implicated in the current outbreak, posing questions such as: What has been learned about the ambitions and the limits of humanitarian medical response? What insights are emerging concerning the contemporary organization of global health security? To what extent have new models of biotechnical innovation been established in the midst of the crisis?
The Working Group on Clinial Trials coordinated by the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform has produced a working document which considers the clinical trials that are planned as part of the Ebola outbreak response from a sociological and anthropological perspective. The document develops a series of critical and empirical questions to guide research that should be conducted within, alongside or separate from clinical interventions. The document goes on to consider questions specific to vaccine, therapeutic and convalescent blood and plasma trials.
Christopher J. M. Whitty and colleagues explain why the United Kingdom is funding many small community centres to isolate suspected cases in Sierra Leone.
The UK government is leading the international response to Ebola in Sierra Leone, providing technical, financial and logistical help. This article sets out the scientific basis for the UK government’s strategy to assist Sierra Leone’s government to reduce transmission. In addition to substantially scaling up conventional capacities at hospitals, the UK plan to help to build and support community isolation centres where people can voluntarily come to be isolated if they suspect that they have the disease.
Held as part of the African Studies Association conference 2014, Ebola: The Challenges united an esteemed panel of speakers to discuss ways in which academia can mobilise to support those effected by the ebola outbreak.
As the worst Ebola epidemic on record shows no signs of abating in West Africa, fear and ignorance are increasingly said to be playing a role in its continued spread. Meanwhile, local practices such as the consumption of bushmeat and deforestation are the go-to explanations for the epidemic’s underlying causes. However, decades of anthropological research in the region by STEPS Centre and Institute of Development Studies (IDS) researchers, indicates not only that this picture is an over-simplification, but that disease control policies based on these ideas may be unhelpful.
