The Social and Political Dimensions of the Ebola Response: Global Inequality, Climate Change, and Infectious Disease

Abstract

The 2014 Ebola crisis has highlighted public-health vulnerabilities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-countries ravaged by extreme poverty, deforestation and mining-related disruption of livelihoods and ecosystems, and bloody civil wars in the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ebola's emergence and impact are grounded in the legacy of colonialism and its creation of enduring inequalities within African nations and globally, via neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Recent experiences with new and emerging diseases such as SARS and various strains of HN influenzas have demonstrated the effectiveness of a coordinated local and global public health and education-oriented response to contain epidemics. To what extent is international assistance to fight Ebola strengthening local public health and medical capacity in a sustainable way, so that other emerging disease threats, which are accelerating with climate change, may be met successfully? This chapter considers the wide-ranging socio-political, medical, legal and environmental factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of Ebola, with particular emphasis on the politics of the global and public health response and the role of gender, social inequality, colonialism and racism as they relate to the mobilization and establishment of the public health infrastructure required to combat Ebola and other emerging diseases in times of climate change.

Can Ebola virus evolve to be less virulent in humans?

“…Regarding the recent Ebola epidemic, the lack of medical personnel and infrastructure in the affected countries played an key role in the spread of the disease as, for example, according to the World Health Organization, in 2008 Liberia and Sierra Leone had only a density of 0.015 physicians per 1000 inhabitants, when at the same time France had a density of 3.5 and the United States of America 2.4. This was further exacerbated by historical, political and sociological factors (Ali et al ., ).…”

The Politics of Disease Epidemics: a Comparative Analysis of the SARS, Zika, and Ebola Outbreaks

“…For example, we are aware of critical texts in the form of books, which may have enriched this manuscript-specifically, Ng (2008) and Teo, Yeoh, and Ong (2008) provide insight into how other cities affected by SARs attributed responsibility, talked about attribution of risk and responsibility for the disease; (Teo et al 2008;Ali 2008) Teo, Yeoh, andOng (2008) point to Singapore's attribution of responsibility and credibility of evidence; (Keil and Ali 2008), while Keil and Ali (2008) also note the racialization of the SARS epidemic in Toronto, reflecting on the stigmatization of Toronto's Chinese and South Asian communities (King 2008). However, King's (2008) work positions globalization as both responsible for causing and responding to infectious disease outbreaks (Ali et al 2016), such narratives are thought to create space to better understand how such processes might be repurposed as public health solutions. Finally, Ali, Dumbuya, Hynie, Idahosa, Keil, and Perkins (2016) ground the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in the context of colonial legacies, specifically emphasizing that global public health responses were political in that the establishment of the public health infrastructure tasked with responding to Ebola was influenced by social inequality, colonialism, and racism ().…”

“…However, King's (2008) work positions globalization as both responsible for causing and responding to infectious disease outbreaks (Ali et al 2016), such narratives are thought to create space to better understand how such processes might be repurposed as public health solutions. Finally, Ali, Dumbuya, Hynie, Idahosa, Keil, and Perkins (2016) ground the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in the context of colonial legacies, specifically emphasizing that global public health responses were political in that the establishment of the public health infrastructure tasked with responding to Ebola was influenced by social inequality, colonialism, and racism (). By adopting a social science perspective, Ali et al (2016) unpack the diverse factorssocial, political, environmental, medical, and legal-that facilitated the escalation of the Ebola crisis ().…”

“…Finally, Ali, Dumbuya, Hynie, Idahosa, Keil, and Perkins (2016) ground the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in the context of colonial legacies, specifically emphasizing that global public health responses were political in that the establishment of the public health infrastructure tasked with responding to Ebola was influenced by social inequality, colonialism, and racism (). By adopting a social science perspective, Ali et al (2016) unpack the diverse factorssocial, political, environmental, medical, and legal-that facilitated the escalation of the Ebola crisis (). However, since the scope of this paper was limited to peer-reviewed journal publications and one outbreak from each income context as an illustration, such information (from books and from other contexts) although relevant, was beyond the paper's scope.…”

Can Ebola Virus evolve to be less virulent in humans?

“…Trait evolution is shaped by contact patterns between hosts (Lion and van Baalen, 2008 (Ali et al, 2016).…”