Ebola's Message

Ebola's Message PDF Author: Nicholas G. Evans
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262553422
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Interdisciplinary perspectives on the science, politics, and ethics of the 2013–2015 Ebola virus disease outbreak. The 2013–2015 outbreak of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) was a public health disaster: 28,575 infections and 11,313 deaths (as of October 2015), devastating the countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; a slow and mismanaged international response; and sensationalistic media coverage, seized upon by politicians to justify wrongheaded policy. And yet there were also promising developments that may improve future responses to infectious disease epidemics: the UN Security Council's first involvement in a public health event; a series of promising clinical treatments and vaccines for EVD; and recognition of the need for a global public health system to deal with epidemics that cross national borders. This volume offers a range of perspectives on these and other lessons learned, with essays on the science, politics, and ethics of the Ebola outbreak. The contributors discuss topics including the virology and management of EVD in both rich and poor nations; the spread of the disease (with an essay by a leader of Médecins Sans Frontières); racist perceptions of West Africa; mainstream and social media responses to Ebola; and the ethical issue of whether to run clinical trials of experimental treatments during an outbreak. Contributors Christian L. Althaus, Daniel G. Bausch, Adia Benton, Michael J. Connor, Jr., Kim Yi Dionne, Nicholas G. Evans, Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Stephen Goldstein, Bridget Haire, Patricia C. Henwood, Kelly Hills, Cyril Ibe, Marjorie Kruvand, Lisa M. Lee, Maimuna S. Majumder, Alexandra L. Phelan, Annette Rid, Cristine Russell, Lara Schwarz, Laura Seay, Michael Selgelid, Tara C. Smith, Armand Sprecher

Ebola's Message

Ebola's Message PDF Author: Nicholas G. Evans
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262553422
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Interdisciplinary perspectives on the science, politics, and ethics of the 2013–2015 Ebola virus disease outbreak. The 2013–2015 outbreak of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) was a public health disaster: 28,575 infections and 11,313 deaths (as of October 2015), devastating the countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; a slow and mismanaged international response; and sensationalistic media coverage, seized upon by politicians to justify wrongheaded policy. And yet there were also promising developments that may improve future responses to infectious disease epidemics: the UN Security Council's first involvement in a public health event; a series of promising clinical treatments and vaccines for EVD; and recognition of the need for a global public health system to deal with epidemics that cross national borders. This volume offers a range of perspectives on these and other lessons learned, with essays on the science, politics, and ethics of the Ebola outbreak. The contributors discuss topics including the virology and management of EVD in both rich and poor nations; the spread of the disease (with an essay by a leader of Médecins Sans Frontières); racist perceptions of West Africa; mainstream and social media responses to Ebola; and the ethical issue of whether to run clinical trials of experimental treatments during an outbreak. Contributors Christian L. Althaus, Daniel G. Bausch, Adia Benton, Michael J. Connor, Jr., Kim Yi Dionne, Nicholas G. Evans, Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Stephen Goldstein, Bridget Haire, Patricia C. Henwood, Kelly Hills, Cyril Ibe, Marjorie Kruvand, Lisa M. Lee, Maimuna S. Majumder, Alexandra L. Phelan, Annette Rid, Cristine Russell, Lara Schwarz, Laura Seay, Michael Selgelid, Tara C. Smith, Armand Sprecher

The Ebola Epidemic in West Africa

The Ebola Epidemic in West Africa PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309450063
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
The most recent Ebola epidemic that began in late 2013 alerted the entire world to the gaps in infectious disease emergency preparedness and response. The regional outbreak that progressed to a significant public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in a matter of months killed 11,310 and infected more than 28,616. While this outbreak bears some unique distinctions to past outbreaks, many characteristics remain the same and contributed to tragic loss of human life and unnecessary expenditure of capital: insufficient knowledge of the disease, its reservoirs, and its transmission; delayed prevention efforts and treatment; poor control of the disease in hospital settings; and inadequate community and international responses. Recognizing the opportunity to learn from the countless lessons of this epidemic, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in March 2015 to discuss the challenges to successful outbreak responses at the scientific, clinical, and global health levels. Workshop participants explored the epidemic from multiple perspectives, identified important questions about Ebola that remained unanswered, and sought to apply this understanding to the broad challenges posed by Ebola and other emerging pathogens, to prevent the international community from being taken by surprise once again in the face of these threats. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds

Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds PDF Author: Paul Farmer
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374716986
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
“Paul Farmer brings his considerable intellect, empathy, and expertise to bear in this powerful and deeply researched account of the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014. It is hard to imagine a more timely or important book.” —Bill and Melinda Gates "[The] history is as powerfully conveyed as it is tragic . . . Illuminating . . . Invaluable." —Steven Johnson, The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand—Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa’s chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not – and the region’s health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

Ebola

Ebola PDF Author: Paul Richards
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783608617
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Shortlisted for the Fage and Oliver Prize 2018 From December 2013, the largest Ebola outbreak in history swept across West Africa, claiming thousands of lives in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. By the middle of 2014, the international community was gripped by hysteria. Experts grimly predicted that millions would be infected within months, and a huge international control effort was mounted to contain the virus. Yet paradoxically, by this point the disease was already going into decline in Africa itself. So why did outside observers get it so wrong? Paul Richards draws on his extensive first-hand experience in Sierra Leone to argue that the international community’s panicky 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 these initiatives and that it hampered recovery when it ignored or disregarded local knowledge.

The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone PDF Author: Richard Preston
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307817652
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. Now a mini-series drama starring Julianna Margulies, Topher Grace, Liam Cunningham, James D'Arcy, and Noah Emmerich on National Geographic. A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.

Emerging Viruses

Emerging Viruses PDF Author: Leonard G. Horowitz
Publisher: Medical Veritas International
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
Horowitz (public health author) presents thoroughly researched information in his exploration into the origins of the HIV and Ebola viruses. His bias toward the theory that HIV was introduced into the general population by vaccine experiments conducted in New York City and Africa, is apparent. He generalizes from this thesis that the AIDS epidemic may have been deliberately deployed as a genocide tactic as part of the CIA foreign policy activity in Central Africa. The volume is characteristic of a "conspiracy genre," and as such presents its facts with an eye toward a predisposed conclusion. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Epidemic

Epidemic PDF Author: Reid Wilson
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815731361
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
A global health catastrophe narrowly averted. A world unprepared for another outbreak. In December 2013, a young boy in a tiny West African village contracted the deadly Ebola virus. The virus spread to his relatives, then to neighboring communities, then across international borders. The world's first urban Ebola outbreak quickly overwhelmed the global health system and threatened to kill millions. As we are currently seeing, in an increasingly interconnected world in which everyone is one or two flights away from New York or London or Beijing, a localized epidemic has become a pandemic. Ebola's spread through West Africa to Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States sounded global alarms that the next killer outbreak is right around the corner—and that the world is woefully unprepared to combat a new deadly disease. From the poorest villages of rural West Africa to the Oval Office itself, this book tells the story of a deadly virus that spun wildly out of control—and reveals the truth about how close the world came to a catastrophic global pandemic. It is a story that serves as a cautionary tale for the COVID-19 epidemic currently spreading throughout the world.

The Politics of Fear

The Politics of Fear PDF Author: Michiel Hofman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190624477
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Politics of Fear is Médecins sans Frontières's commissioned analysis of the politics surrounding the 2014 Ebola epidemic and response. Comprising eleven topic-based chapters and four eyewitness vignettes from contributors inside and outside MSF (all of whom have been given access to MSF Ebola archives from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia for research), it aims to provide a politically agnostic account of the defining health event of the 21st century so far, a resource that will inform current opinions and foster effectual, cooperative response to the future epidemics.

Outbreak Culture

Outbreak Culture PDF Author: Pardis Sabeti
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674260473
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year ÒA critical, poignant postmortem of the epidemic.Ó ÑWashington Post ÒForceful and instructive...Sabeti and Salahi uncover competition, sabotage, fear, blame, and disorganization bordering on chaos, features that are seen in just about any lethal epidemic.Ó ÑPaul Farmer, cofounder of Partners in Health ÒThe central theme of the book...is that common threads of dysfunction run through responses to epidemics...The power of Outbreak Culture is its universality.Ó ÑNature ÒSabeti and Salahi present a wealth of evidence supporting the imperative that outbreak response must operate in a coordinated, real-time manner.Ó ÑScience As we saw with the Ebola outbreakÑand the disastrous early handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemicÑa lack of preparedness, delays, and system-wide problems with the distribution of critical medical supplies can have deadly consequences. Yet after every outbreak, the systems put in place to coordinate emergency responses are generally dismantled. One of AmericaÕs top biomedical researchers, Dr. Pardis Sabeti, and her Pulitzer PrizeÐwinning collaborator, Lara Salahi, argue that these problems are built into the ecosystem of our emergency responses. With an understanding of the path of disease and insight into political psychology, they show how secrecy, competition, and poor coordination plague nearly every major public health crisis and reveal how much more could be done to safeguard the well-being of caregivers, patients, and vulnerable communities. A work of fearless integrity and unassailable authority, Outbreak Culture seeks to ensure that we make some urgently needed changes before the next pandemic.

The Pandemic Century

The Pandemic Century PDF Author: Mark Honigsbaum
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1787382648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Like sharks, epidemic diseases always lurk just beneath the surface. This fast-paced history of their effect on mankind prompts questions about the limits of scientific knowledge, the dangers of medical hubris, and how we should prepare as epidemics become ever more frequent. Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu and the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 'parrot fever' pandemic and the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last 100 years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms. Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. These pandemics remind us of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as the role that human behaviour and technologies play in the emergence and spread of microbial diseases.