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Begin New Search Topic Epidemic Publication Year within 25 Years

1. The Historical Significance of Epidemics in the Middle East

Author:
Benan Grams
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Just as the world was starting to recover from its battle with the still new and relatively unknown Covid-19 SARS virus, an old horrific disease has returned to the Arab world earlier this year, threatening to unleash another human disaster. In late August, cholera broke out in Syria’s northeastern region around the Euphrates. It quickly spread to other parts of the country, and by early October had become a regional epidemic, with cholera outbreaks reported in neighboring Lebanon. Cholera now threatens to reach other areas in the Middle East and beyond, accelerating it from an epidemic impacting a limited geographic area to a global pandemic hitting multiple regions around the world While cholera was the nineteenth century’s most dreaded disease, it was neither the first nor the only pandemic to impact societies around the world. Deadly diseases like plague and smallpox had terrorized the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world for centuries. Plague epidemics (طاعون), which recurred in the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt until the first half of the nineteenth century, were addressed by the prophet Mohammad and became a subject of debate in Islamic tradition. While plague targeted various segments of society, smallpox was a disease that killed primarily children. Those who survived it were left with scars but also immunity for life. Other documented infectious diseases like measles, tuberculosis, malaria, syphilis, typhoid, and typhus also killed hundreds of thousands of people, weakened armies, caused displacement, and caused economic devastation by leaving ripe agricultural crops unharvested.
Topic:
History, COVID-19, Epidemic, and Plague
Political Geography:
Middle East

2. The Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. Initiative: An Interim Assessment and Policy Recommendations

Author:
Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Mackenzie Burke, and Maclane Speer
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative is a promising federal program launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February 2019 with the aim of reducing new HIV infections by 75 percent by 2025 and 90 percent by 2030 (from a baseline of more than 38,000 new diagnoses in 2017). While the EHE initiative set ambitious targets for ending the HIV epidemic in the United States in the context of a sound and sensible plan, it is at present off track. Now, three years in—at the midpoint of the first EHE phase, which has a target of reducing new HIV infections to 9,250 people or fewer by 2025—is an opportune moment to assess its status and the challenges it faces. After a review of progress to date, this report examines the collision between the logical plan behind the EHE initiative and the complicated patchwork of programs that provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment to the diverse communities affected across all EHE jurisdictions. The analysis is informed by several roundtable discussions convened by CSIS with the participation of a representative group of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), community advocates, physicians, service providers, researchers, and policymakers who are implementing the EHE initiative around the country. The report concludes with policy recommendations in four areas: (1) meet people where they are by building programs that are centered on the needs of populations directly affected by the HIV epidemic; (2) address flexibility in design and implementation; (3) improve data, metrics, and accountability; and (4) heighten political advocacy to ensure future funding of the EHE initiative. A strong theme that runs throughout the report is that lessons from the global HIV response—the importance of building interventions from the ground up, of engaging with affected communities, and of taking an integrated approach across a spectrum of biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, economic, and political dimensions—can inform and strengthen the U.S. domestic response to HIV/AIDS.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, Medicine, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. From the Great Influenza to COVID-19: Epidemics of Scale through a Historical Lens

Author:
Fedir Razumenko
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
COVID-19 has galvanized changes in the economy of patient-doctor relationships and technological interfaces across the healthcare system. A rapid adoption of technologies that were previously slow to take hold opened more diverse and accessible spaces for care. At the same time, some persistent barriers in pivoting to scientific-medical advances in managing the pandemic revealed stark inequities in both access to care and exposure to risk. Political and organizational responses to the crisis often excluded the perspectives of vulnerable groups bearing more burdens than others. Some patients and healthcare providers suffered in isolation, however these experiences have escaped public attention due to the fragmented Canadian health information infrastructure. The social meanings of and collective responses to the pandemic nationally are rooted in historical developments. Comparative analyses of epidemic crises along with their consequences have the potential to inform our critical evaluations of problem-solving approaches and policymaking when what we do not know about the issue exceeds what we know. This article demonstrates that historical analysis serves an important role in examining the complex interaction of social and biological forces that constitute epidemic disease. By linking the past and present of epidemic crises we can better understand how social and scientific-medical responses to epidemics shift following the epidemic experience. To be forewarned is to be forearmed acquires a definite meaning as historical contexts set a background for assessing new situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has not emerged out of thin air, so tracing its origin and development is simultaneously a scientific and an historical undertaking.
Topic:
Crisis Management, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and Global Focus

4. Responding to Ebola epidemics

Author:
Gentiane Lamoure and Helene Juillard
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
Epidemics of infectious diseases are occurring more often, and spreading faster and further across the world than ever before. The emergence of large-scale epidemics (such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS and, even more recently, COVID-19), the re-emergence of old diseases (such as tuberculosis and haemorrhagic dengue) and the persistence of epidemics of controllable diseases (such as measles, cholera or malaria) have led national governments and global institutions to consider epidemics as some of the most serious major public health emergency threats for the 21st century. Since 2010, both medical and non medical humanitarian actors have been increasingly involved in the response to major outbreaks. This lessons paper aims to inform future humanitarian responses to Ebola, acting as a guide for humanitarian practitioners. Some of its findings – such as the lessons on coordination, funding and economic recovery – may also be transferable to responses to other epidemics. The paper seeks to answer the research question: ‘What lessons for humanitarian practitioners can be drawn from the responses to the Ebola epidemic outbreaks since 2014?’
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Ebola, Crisis Management, Public Health, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Africa

5. Learning from the Ebola Response in cities: Population movement

Author:
Leah Campbell
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
The West African Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2014/15 posed a number of urban-specific challenges to humanitarians responding to the crisis. ALNAP's Learning from the Ebola Response in cities series brings together the lessons learnt from the response in West Africa, with each paper focusing on a topic: quarantine, population movement, and engaging with communities. Population movement Population mobility is a critical area of concern in any infectious disease crisis, and particularly in those spread through human-to-human contact, such as Ebola. During the West African Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2014/15, population mobility within and between urban and rural areas became a key challenge for humanitarian response. This paper explores the urban dimensions of population mobility, including forces for and drivers of mobility as well as the implications for humanitarian response.
Topic:
Ebola, Mobility, Urban, Disaster Management, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

6. Learning from the Ebola Response in Cities: Responding in the context of urban quarantine

Author:
Leah Campbell, Christopher Adan, and Milimer Morgado
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
The West African Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2014/15 posed a number of urban-specific challenges to humanitarians responding to the crisis. ALNAP's 'Learning from Ebola' series brings together the lessons learnt from the response in West Africa, with each paper focusing on a topic: quarantine, population movement, and engaging with communities. Quarantine This paper brings together lessons from interviews with humanitarians and local responders, as well as existing literature, about the use of quarantine in urban environments during the humanitarian response to the Ebola Crisis.
Topic:
Ebola, Urban, Cities, Disaster Management, Epidemic, and Humanitarian Response
Political Geography:
Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea

7. Ebola Response in Cities: Learning for Future Public Health Crises

Author:
Leah Campbell
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
The 2014/15 West African Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak was the ‘largest, most severe and most complex Ebola epidemic the world has ever seen’ (WHO, 2014b). It was the first time the disease had affected an urban centre. The 23 prior outbreaks of EVD in Africa had all been largely rural, and the largest outbreak, in Gulu, Uganda, had infected only 425 people. As such, there was no expectation or experience of a massive urban outbreak. While the unprecedented ‘urban-ness’ of this EVD outbreak did not go unnoticed, particularly by the media, overall this recognition did not result in an urban-appropriate response. As part of a learning initiative spanning across the EVD epidemic in West Africa, this paper aims to share reflections and learning about the urban nature of the EVD outbreak. In doing so, it aims to improve future urban public health responses. It builds on existing learning around the EVD response, focusing on urban issues as a noted gap in the key literature on the response thus far.
Topic:
Development, Health, Humanitarian Aid, Ebola, Urban, Disaster Management, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea

8. Break Your Bones: Mortality and Morbidity Associated with Haiti’s Chikungunya Epidemic

Author:
Athena R. Kolbe, Augusta Herman, and Robert Muggah
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
In December 2013, chikungunya, a debilitating dengue-like virus spread by mosquitos, was first diagnosed in the Americas on the island of St. Martin. The disease quickly spread to neighboring islands and on May 7 the Haitian Ministry of Health confirmed 14 cases. A week later that number had increased to more than 1,500. Within two weeks of its purported arrival, it had risen to more than 5,500 cases. Epidemiologists report that chikungunya is likely to keep spreading. Although most Caribbean nations were able to control and respond to the outbreak, chikungunya has been merciless in Haiti. Lack of basic infrastructure, poor mosquito control measures, and deep social and economic disparities hampered prevention and treatment efforts. Shortly after the outbreak was announced, an Igarapé Institute-led research team was dispatched to conduct a nationwide survey to determine the risks and protective factors for infection with chikungunya. The Institute has coordinated similar assessments of spread of cholera and food security in the wake of natural disasters, as well as violence and victimization. Between 19-30 May 2014, a total of 2,807 randomly sampled households (accounting for 13,760 individuals) from all ten geographic departments were interviewed, as were 446 randomly sampled tourists departing the Port-auPrince airport. An additional survey of market conditions was conducted in Port-au-Prince and the seaside town of Jacmel. A qualitative component to the study included five focus groups (ten participants in each group) and 27 in-depth interviews. The qualitative interviews and focus groups were conducted in Jacmel and the greater Port-auPrince area.
Topic:
Infrastructure, Public Health, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Haiti

9. HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, and Legal Services in Uganda

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Open Society Foundations
Abstract:
Widespread human rights abuses and lack of legal services is fueling Uganda's HIV epidemic, according to a report from the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) and OSI's Law and Health Initiative (LAHI). HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, and Legal Services in Uganda documents common abuses faced by people living with AIDS or at high risk of HIV, including: barriers to employment or education; discrimination in gaining access to medical care; violations of the right to medical privacy; forced HIV testing; and eviction from housing. According to the report, while the government of Uganda has addressed the medical effects of the HIV epidemic, it has paid little attention to the epidemic’s legal and human rights implications. This is especially true for marginalized populations who are most vulnerable to HIV-related human rights abuses: women (especially young women, widows, and women living in fishing communities); sex workers; orphans and vulnerable children; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals; and internally displaced persons. The report recommends stronger enforcement of policies and legislation that offer clear protection against HIV-related stigma and discrimination. It calls for greater support to community-based groups that have sought to integrate legal support into HIV prevention and care programs. It also recommends strengthening legal mechanisms to help people living with HIV access justice. Local Council Courts appear to be the most utilized dispute resolution mechanism by communities, but these courts are not being used to address HIV-related infringement of rights.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, Human Rights, Health Care Policy, Discrimination, Legal Sector, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
Uganda and East Africa