A Global Perspective on Ebola Virus and Healthcare Assignment

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Ebola virus outbreak, focusing on its global health implications and the impact of social determinants. The introduction establishes the significance of social determinants of health, emphasizing how unequal distribution of resources contributes to health disparities, particularly in disease outbreaks like the Ebola epidemic from 2013 to 2016 in West Africa. The report delves into the Ebola virus, its transmission routes, and the challenges in vaccine development, including technological limitations, return on investment considerations, and lack of awareness. Public health management strategies implemented in affected regions are discussed, highlighting guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO) aimed at disease prevention and control. The report examines the WHO's roadmap for awareness and prevention, including strategies to reduce transmission and contain the outbreak. The conclusion reiterates the importance of social determinants in health outcomes and the need for effective global responses to infectious diseases.

Running head: HEALTHCARE ASSIGNMENT
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
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Introduction
Social determinants of health are critical conditions in which any person born, grows,
age, works and dies. As per World Health Organisation (2019), due to improper distribution
of wealth, power and resources at local, national and global levels, inequalities in social
determinants of health is observed. Therefore, depending on these aspects, the difference in
health status of different countries are determined. However, in disease outbreak associated
condition, despite of unequal distribution of power, wealth and resources, adverse effect for
entire community is observed as in case of disease outbreak, despite the availability of the
resources, people are unaware of its utilization (Braveman & Gottlieb, 2014). Therefore, to
prevent such condition, as per the World Health Organisation (2019), public health
management strategies should be implemented so that proper management of the condition
could be achieved.
One such disease outbreak was related to Ebola virus was observed from the year
2013 up to 2016 and affected majority of the western African region by affecting its social
economic condition and extreme loss of life (Gomes et al., 2014). The countries that were
reported with extreme outbreak of Ebola were Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. As per the
World Health Organisation (2019), due to the outbreak of Ebola, more than 28,000 cases
were registered in the year 2014, in which 11,310 people were reportedly died in the disease
condition.
The primary aim of this paper is to understand the outbreak of Ebola virus and with
proper details of the virus, the source of the outbreak and the way of transmission, discussion
of the identification and prevention measures applied by such countries would be discussed.
Further, the reason due to which, the discovery of Ebola vaccination was delayed would be
discussed in comparison to other conditions. Finally, the public health management strategies

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and prevention conditions would be discussed in the light of application of social
determinants of health.
Ebola virus and its transmission
Ebola Virus or commonly as the Ebola haemorrhage fever is one of the severe and
fatal critical health condition. The first discovery of this virus was done in the year 1976
when it outbreak in the south Sudan, however the outbreak of 2013 to 2016 is termed as the
most severe disease in the history of mankind as it affected the entire African continent (.
This virus is a member of Filoviridae family and the outbreak that affected a large population
of the world community belong to the Zaire Ebola virus species.
While discussing the source of the virus, the documentation about the disease by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019) should be mentioned as the source of the
disease has not been found by the scientists. However, depending on the identification of
other similar viruses, it is determined that the virus is originated from animals and bat is the
most popular source of this virus (Camacho et al., 2014). As per Moratelli and Calisher
(2015), the virus originated in the bats, spread to the humans through other animals like apes
and monkeys.
Transmission of the disorder spreads through the fruit bats that belong to the
Pteropodidae family as per Leendertz et al. (2016), which is one of the natural host for the
virus. Further Lewnard et al. (2014) also mentioned in the research that majority of the
transmission that were assessed for the identification of transmission route were associated
with the contact of blood, secretions bodily fluids of animals of rainforest such as the fruit
bats, gorillas, monkeys and apes. Further, transmission of Ebola in human to human aspect is
through bodily fluids, secretion of an infected individual which transferred to other through
injuries or contamination that spreads through the blood-borne infection (Chowell &

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Nishiura, 2014). In this aspect, the risk of healthcare professionals to be affected with this
adverse viral disease should be mentioned as Matanock et al. (2014) mentioned that
healthcare professionals are at high risk of infected with Ebola virus while treating patients
with such healthcare condition. Due to close affinity with the patients and contact with bodily
secretions of the patient, healthcare professionals are at high risk of developing this disease
condition.
Further, besides the above- mentioned way of Ebola virus transmission, sexual mode
of transmission was also observed and registered as well as documented in the World Health
Organisation (2019). As per the document, due to the presence of the viable virus in the
semen of infected individuals, maximum number of Ebola affected cases were registered
under the sexual transmission category (World Health Organisation, 2019). Besides the
sexual transmission of the disease, consumption of fruits that are infected with fruit bats and
monkeys or apes could also lead to transmission pf the virus among the humans. Moreover,
usage of contaminated needles and syringes, or using objects that contain the body fluid of
infected individual could lead to severe condition of Ebola fever or haemorrhage. However,
in this aspect it should be mentioned that, as per Rewar and Mirdha (2014) Ebola virus does
not spread through food and researchers also do not get any sign of the spread of this disease
through mosquitoes and other insects, hence the transmission of this virus is restricted to the
contamination of bodily fluids and sexual mode of transmission.
Vaccination and development of Ebola vaccine
While understanding the vaccine development and precedent delay in the
development of the vaccine, the history and the prevalence of the disease should be
understood so that the approach of the global healthcare organisations in the development of
the vaccine could be understood. As per Lai et al. (2015), economically development of
vaccines for any new or sudden disease outbreak, requires immediate funding and

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collaboration between the public and private organisations. Further, it also depends on the
need and urge of the government that are affected of the disease outbreak so that starting
from development of the vaccine to its clinical trials and registration and regulatory approval
and in the later stage, large scale production and implementation occurs (Regules et al.,
2017). Therefore as per Marzi et al. (2015) several factors contributed in the delay of
development of vaccines for Ebola virus than the contemporary H1N1 and Zika virus vaccine
development. The barriers or hurdles present in the way of vaccine development for Ebola
virus are as follows:
Lack of technological means: there are several organisations that claims to discover
the vaccine for Zaire ebolavirus however, due to the loopholes and lack in these developed
vaccines, the need of an effective and efficient vaccine for Zaire ebolavirus could be seen in
the healthcare facilities around the world (Henao-Restrepo et al., 2015). As per Tully et al.
(2015) the British pharmacological organisation GlaxoSmithKline developed one Ebola virus
vaccine while the outbreak of the disease however, the vaccination takes time to grow and
divide in human body, hence showed delayed response. This vaccine is termed as cAd3-
ZEBOV which was completely funded by the private organisations and hence, lack of
funding and technology was one of the reason for the inefficient development of Ebola
vaccines around the world (Ahmadi Fard, 2016).
Return on investment: one of the primary reason for the stalled or delayed
development of vaccines of Ebola virus was due to the location of the disease outbreak and
associated social determinants of health of that region. As per Dye (2014), majority of the
disease vaccines that has been rapidly developed and implemented in the community were
focused on the returns that the organisations developing the vaccines were supposed to get
from the market. As per the researchers Modjarrad et al. (2016), the primary aim of the
organisations developing such vaccines is to target the market of the most affected country so

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that maximum and profitable return could be collected. However, the primary outbreak of the
Ebola virus occurred in the African continent and very few disease conditions were registered
in first world countries such as the United States, Spain, Italy and others (World Health
Organization, 2015). Therefore, developing vaccines for a region form where minimal return
would be generated was the primary hindrance for the organisations developing vaccines for
Ebola. Further, as per Ahmadi Fard (2016) majority of the funding for the development and
research of vaccines comes from UK, USA, Switzerland, and Canada therefore, lack of scope
of return of investment was the primary scope of delay in the development of vaccines for
Ebola virus.
Lack of awareness: as per Shrivastava, Shrivastava and Ramasamy (2015) lack of
awareness and inability of the local and world healthcare organisations in developing
awareness among the population of the affected countries regarding the developed and
efficient vaccine for Ebola was one of the critical limiting factor. As per Fazekas et al.
(2015), the government of western African countries were not able to spread awareness
among the affected communities due to which, the implementation of the vaccines in the
severely affected communities stalled or delayed.
Description of public health management strategies in affected regions
As per World Health Organisation (2019), there is a range of public health
recommendations developed by the organisation so that in the condition of disease outbreak,
effective care and treatment could be provided to the patients and associated awareness about
the disease could be spread. Within these guidelines, the roadmap to prevention and the
framework for achieving sustainable health outcomes are of most importance (Forrester et al.,
2014). The primary aim of this healthcare management strategies are to make the population
affected with the health condition or are at the higher risk of developing disease condition,
could be provided with detailed nature of the disease and the type of transmissions through

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which the occurrence of this disease is observed. This would help the communities to develop
a healthcare literacy about the disease condition, and they will be able to prevent the severe
means of Ebola transmission (Lewnard et al., 2014). Further these guidelines also helped the
countries and healthcare authorities to understand the ways of managing and responding to
the adverse conditions. Hence, through the identification of the disease prevention and
management strategies, it could be expected that the communities would be able to manage
the healthcare condition effectively. Further, the roadmap that was developed by the World
Health Organisation (2019) for the achievement of complete awareness among the population
of western Africa, was implemented with the gaol of restricting the Ebola virus within 6 to 9
months. Therefore the primary aim of this road map was to strengthen the countries so that
they could develop effective means of prevention and exposure in the communities (Christie
et al., 2015).
Further, the preventive measures that was developed by the World Health
Organisation (2019) was related to effective ways using which the transmission of the virus
among the population with lower social determinants of health could be developed. The
primary strategies that were mentioned in the preventive measures were related to the
reduction of wildlife to human transmission, controlling the human to human transmission,
reducing the risk factors related to sexual transmission, and then determining the containment
measures so that the outbreak could be controlled within 9 months (Lewnard et al., 2014).
Further, it also developed the awareness program so that people suffering from the disease
outbreak could be provided with effective means of prevention and control of Ebola outbreak.
Further, as per Christie et al. (2015), the government should also restrict the dead body burial
of patients affected with Ebola in specific locations so that the infection could not spread
from the infected dead bodies. These are the prevention and awareness means that were
developed for the Ebola prevention.

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Conclusion
While concluding the paper, it could be said that social determinants of health such as
economic aspects, educational resources, availability of healthcare choices, and the degree of
awareness determines the ability of any community to overcome of disease outbreak. This
paper discussed about the Ebola disease outbreak and in the course it mentions about the
transmission, development and progression of the disease. Further, in the course, it mentions
that despite a global concern, the development of the vaccination took excess time and the
paper discussed about the factors that contributed in the delay of the vaccine development of
the disease. Finally the means using which the public health management and preventive
measures for the disease outbreak was developed, has been mentioned in the paper.

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