Public Health Response to the 2014-2015 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the public health response to the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It begins with a brief description of the disease and its origins, highlighting the role of zoonotic transmission. The essay then outlines the clinical presentation of Ebola and its highly contagious nature, emphasizing the significance of exposure to infected bodily fluids. It identifies key international organizations, such as the WHO, UNICEF, and CDC, that were responsible for managing the outbreak and implementing prevention strategies. A significant portion of the essay is devoted to exploring how cultural and traditional belief systems influenced the spread of the disease, particularly practices related to contact with patients and funeral rituals. The response of the organizations to address the spread of Ebola is highlighted, including massive health education programs and the involvement of traditional and religious healers. The essay concludes by noting the successes in changing cultural practices and reducing the death toll, as reported in 2016.

Public health response to Ebola outbreak 1
PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE TO EBOLA OUTBREAK
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Public health response to Ebola outbreak 2
Ebola is a serious and fatal disease caused by Ebola virus. This virus has five strains of
which one of them causes the infection. It is believed that the virus originated from bats and was
transmitted to humans. As stated by oltart et al. (2017), the disease was originally as a result of
contact with fluids of infected animals such as bats, monkeys, gorillas and porcupines. It is
therefore considered as one of the many zoonotic viruses and infections. On March 23rd 2014,
there was an epidemic outbreak of the disease that was reported by the World Health
Organization (WHO) in the forest infested area of southeastern Guinea in West Africa.
The epidemic was really massive and spread quickly to the neighboring borders within
West Africa. Some of the countries affected in West Africa were Guinea itself, Liberia, Mali,
Sierra Leone, Senegal and Nigeria. Since the epidemic was massive, people from other countries
who visited West Africa contracted the disease which led to increased spread of the disease
outside the continent. Ebola has various clinical presentation which include fever, severe
headaches, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, malaise, vomiting and excessive sweating and
dehydration (Hoenen et al, 2016). The virus is highly contagious and very easily transmitted
from one person to another. Exposure to blood and body fluids of an infected person contributed
to the spread of the epidemic.
In the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak, a number of international organizations stepped in to
manage the spread of the disease and also help offer a solution to the epidemic. The United
Nations through the World Health Organization for example assisted in identification of root
cause of the emerging disease and conducting tests in the affected in order to gain a better
understanding of it. Other organizations such as UNICEF and CDC assisted in containing the
spread by developing prevention schemes. Culture and traditional belief systems were identified
as one of the main causes of the rapid spread of the infection within West Africa.

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The African culture of maintaining contact with patient in order to offer moral support for
example was a major contributor to the transmission. The various belief systems and traditions of
conducting rituals so as to offer a proper send off to those who had passed also had a significant
impact in the spread of Ebola in West Africa. The main causes of this spread could be
attributable to the fact that people came into contact with infected person’s blood and other body
fluids (Garske et al, 2017). The culture of maintaining contact through hugs as a form of greeting
as part of the culture of the people also could attribute to the significant spread.
The organizations involved in responding to the public health emergency provided
solutions to prohibit the spread which included conducting massive health education in the
affected parts to ensure that people have an understanding of how the disease can be transmitted
and encouraging them to avoid these ways such as body fluids contact. There was a need to
involve the traditional healers and religious healers who are perceived as leaders in the society so
as to ensure they relay this information and also practice health care protective measures when
interacting with the infected (Kentikelenis et al, 2015). The organizations such as WHO proved
to be successful in changing some of the cultural practices that exposed individuals to the disease
and in 2016, the death toll and incidence of the disease had significantly reduced.

Public health response to Ebola outbreak 4
REFERENCES
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Garske, T., Cori, A., Ariyarajah, A., Blake, I. M., Dorigatti, I., Eckmanns, T., ... & Nedjati-
Gilani, G. (2017). Heterogeneities in the case fatality ratio in the West African Ebola
outbreak 2013–2016. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences, 372(1721), 20160308.
Hoenen, T., Groseth, A., Rosenke, K., Fischer, R. J., Hoenen, A., Judson, S. D., ... &
Wollenberg, K. R. (2016). Nanopore sequencing as a rapidly deployable Ebola outbreak
tool. Emerging infectious diseases, 22(2), 331.
Kentikelenis, A., King, L., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2015). The international monetary fund
and the Ebola outbreak. The Lancet Global Health, 3(2), e69-e70.