For this series of posts titled “Ebola in Perspective,” anthropologists weigh in on their own experiences in West Africa with the aim of countering the dominant narrative portraying the region as “helpless and hopeless.”
In this NPR piece, “Firestone Did What Governments Have Not: Stopped Ebola In Its Tracks,” Jason Beaubien talks about how the Firestone rubber plantation in Harbel, Liberia has successfully avoided an Ebola outbreak on the grounds. Interestingly, Beaubien does not delve into the complicated relationship Firestone has with the town of Harbel, but instead focuses on the ways in which one corporation’s resources were used to contain the disease.
“Aid workers ask where was WHO in Ebola outbreak?”: Daniel Flynn and Stephanie Nebehay address the political and economic factors leading to a lag in WHO response time.
The BBC report “Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone officials in aid row” notes that a container of materials intended to aid in the Ebola crisis are stranded in Freetown with politicians and health officials providing different reasons for the delay.
Daniel Drezner gives us “Seven things we now know about how the world has handled Ebola,” highlighting the shortcomings of the WHO and questioning to what extent the US could effectively stop an outbreak on its own soil.
Finally, Pambazuka News provides several interesting articles related to the Ebola crisis focusing on the (de)militarization of diseases in Africa and the mythologizing of health workers.