Book ID: CBB834243910

Ebola: How a People's Science Helped End an Epidemic (2016)

unapi

Richards, Paul (Author)


Zed Books


Publication Date: 2016
Physical Details: 300 pp.
Language: English

In 2013, the largest Ebola outbreak in history swept across West Africa, claiming thousands of lives in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea and sending the international community into panic. By 2014, experts were grimly predicting that millions would be infected within months, and a huge international control effort was mounted to contain the virus. Yet paradoxically, at this point the disease was already going into decline in Africa itself. Why did outside observers get it so wrong? Paul Richards draws on his extensive firsthand experience in Sierra Leone to argue that the international community’s alarmed response failed to take account of local expertise and common sense. Crucially, Richards shows that the humanitarian response to the disease was most effective in those areas where it supported community initiatives already in place, such as giving local people agency in terms of disposing of bodies. In turn, the international response dangerously hampered recovery when it ignored or disregarded local knowledge. One of the first books to provide an in-depth analysis of the recent pandemic, Ebola offers a clear-eyed account of how and why the disease spread, and why the predictions of international commentators were so misguided. By learning from these mistakes and successes, we can better understand how to harness the power of local communities during future humanitarian health crises.

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Reviewed By

Review Stuart Blume (2019) Review of "Zika: From the Brazilian Backlands to Global Threat". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 658-660). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB834243910/

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Authors & Contributors
Martini, Mariano
Orsini, Davide
Simonutti, Luisa
Fernando Rosa
Cerchiai Manodori Sagredo, Claudia
Elisa Tinelli
Concepts
Pandemics
Medicine and society
Epidemics
Public health
Disease and diseases
Medicine
Time Periods
21st century
19th century
Early modern
20th century
Modern
Renaissance
Places
Sicily
Europe
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Latin America
Italy
Africa
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