Presenter(s): Hadi Barry
Faculty Mentor(s): Jo Weaver
Oral Session 1 C
Global health interventions are influenced by various external factors and politics that determine the level of attention and funding that is given to public health crises that yield long term implications for people and countries affected. The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was a public health emergency of international concern that prompted the creation of the first UN emergency health mission and a massive scale public health response to contain the virus that had spread across three West African nations and was rapidly spreading to more developed countries such as the United States prompting global concern. The initial response to the outbreak was slow and insufficient and significantly exacerbated by the weak health infrastructure in Guinea that was significantly under-equipped to deal with the unfamiliar disease. This delayed response and lack of attention to the outbreak contributed to the spread of Ebola cases outside of West Africa bringing to attention this pattern of globalisation of disease that is of of global concern and required global cooperation and multilateral organisation in order to adequately address. The rapid shift in funding and expansion of humanitarian and political actors responding to the outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia significantly influenced the local response and public perceptions about Ebola which had both positive and negative implications in regards to the efficacy of the public health response.