Ten months after the first infection, Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, described the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as the ‘most severe acute public health emergency in modern times’. The disaster, she said, represents a ‘crisis for international peace and security’ and threatens the ‘very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries’.
This briefing examines responses to the Ebola outbreak and offers a different set of explanations, rooted in the history of the region and the political economy of global health and development.
Authors
