Full Description
From 2013 to 2015, over 11,000 people across West Africa lost their lives to the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus in history. Crucially, this epidemic marked the first time the virus was able to spread beyond rural areas to major cities, overturning conventional assumptions about its epidemiology.
With backgrounds ranging from development to disease control, the contributors to this volume - some of them based in countries affected by the Ebola epidemic - consider the underlying factors that shaped this unprecedented outbreak. While championing the heroic efforts of local communities and aid workers in halting the spread of the disease, the contributors also reveal deep structural problems in both the countries and humanitarian agencies involved, which hampered the efforts to contain the epidemic. Alarmingly, they show that little has been learned from these events, with health provision remaining underfunded and poorly equipped to deal with future outbreaks. Such issues, they argue, reflect the wider challenges we face in tackling epidemic disease in an increasingly interconnected world.
Contents
Maps
Introduction: Understanding West Africa's Ebola Epidemic - Ibrahim Abdullah and Ismail Rashid
Part I: The Regional History and Origins of Ebola
1. Ebola and Regional History: Connections and Common Experiences - Allen Howard
2. Eurocentric Epistemology: Questioning the Narrative on the Epidemic's Origin - Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
Part II: The Neoliberal Affliction: Different Countries, Similar Convulsions
3. Interpreting the Health, Social, and Political Dimensions of the Ebola Crisis in Guinea - Alpha Amadou Bano Barry
4. The Political Economy of the Ebola Epidemic in Liberia - George Klay Kieh, Jr.
5. Confronting Ebola with Bare Hands: Sierra Leone's Health Sector on the Eve of the Ebola Epidemic - Ibrahim Abdullah and Abou Bakarr Kamara
Part III: Development, Gender and its Discontents
6. Structural Violence, Public Health, and the Militarization of Assistance - Julia Amos
7. "I am a woman. How can I not help?" Gender Performance and the Spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone - Aisha Fofana Ibrahim
8. "God Bless Whatsapp": Neoliberal Ebola and the Struggle for Autonomous Space in Sierra Leone - Ibrahim Abdullah
Part IV: Transnational Actors and the Politics of Crisis Response
9. African Union, ECOWAS, and the International Political Economy of the Emergency Response to Ebola - Semiha Abdulmelik
10. The World Health Organization and the Ebola Epidemic - Meredeth Turshen and Tefera Gezmu
11. The Ebola Epidemic Moment in the US-(West) Africa Relations - Fodei Batty
12. UNMEER and the International Response to the Ebola Epidemic - Ismail Rashid
