This descriptive cross-sectional study assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices of Lassa Fever in and around Lafia, Central Nigeria. Structured questionnaires were administered to 200 consenting respondents from urban and sub-urban areas in Lafia. Of the 200 respondents, 87% heard of Lassa Fever with 89% and 80% from urban and sub-urban areas. There was no […]
West and Central Africa
111 documents
Ebola and Lessons for Development
As the Ebola crisis continues to unfold across West Africa and the international community belatedly responds, broader questions arise beyond the immediate challenges on the ground. These fundamentally challenge our understanding of ‘development’ as framed and practised in past decades. In order to understand the causes and consequences of this particular outbreak, and to foster […]
Global Governance and the Limits of Health Security
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has exposed the limits of the current approach to the global governance of infectious diseases, which mixes public health and security interests. International efforts to strengthen ‘health security’ quickly faltered when confronted with weak national health systems. Costly attempts by Western governments to strengthen global health security by developing […]
Strengthening Health Systems for Resilience
In countries with high levels of poverty or instability and with poor health system management and governance, people are highly vulnerable to shocks associated with ill health, including major epidemics. An effective health system can help build their resilience by reducing exposure to infection and minimising the impact of sickness on livelihoods and economic development. […]
Return of the Rebel: Legacies of War and Reconstruction in West Africa’s Ebola Epidemic
The spread of Ebola in West Africa centres on a region with a shared recent history of transnational civil war and internationally led post-conflict reconstruction efforts. This legacy of conflict and shortcomings in the reconstruction efforts are key to understanding how the virus has spread. The dynamics of warfare tied into and accentuated the state’s […]
Ebola, Politics and Ecology: Beyond the ‘Outbreak Narrative’
The origin of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been traced to the likely confluence of a virus, a bat, a two-year-old child and an underequipped rural health centre. Understanding how these factors may have combined in south-eastern Guinea near the end of 2013 requires us to rethink elements of the familiar Ebola ‘outbreak […]
Ebola and Extractive Industry
The economic effects of the Ebola health crisis are slowly unfolding as the virus continues to affect Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The most important sector is mining as these three countries share a rich iron ore geological beltway. The macroeconomic impacts of the crisis came into sharp focus when London Mining, Sierra Leone’s second […]
Urbanisation, the Peri-Urban Growth and Zoonotic Disease
Ebola has had significant, negative effects in the rapidly expanding, unregulated areas of peri-urban and urban West Africa. The residents of these areas maintain vital connections with rural populations while intermingling with and living in close proximity to urban and elite populations. These interconnections fuel the spread of Ebola. The degradation of natural resources, temporary […]
The Pathology of Inequality: Gender and Ebola in West Africa
The international response to Ebola has been decried for being ‘too slow, too little, too late’. As well as racing to respond, we need to consider what has happened over the past decades to leave exposed fault lines that enabled Ebola to move so rapidly across boundaries of people’s bodies, villages, towns and countries. Gender […]
Local Engagement in Ebola Outbreaks and Beyond in Sierra Leone
Containment strategies for Ebola rupture fundamental features of social, political and religious life. Control efforts that involve local people and appreciate their perspectives, social structures and institutions are therefore vital. Unfortunately such approaches have not been widespread in West Africa where response strategies have been predominantly top-down. Authoritarian tactics have had questionable effect, potentially worsening […]
