Two years on, what can we learn from the largely urban Ebola outbreak in West Africa?
To reflect on this response, ALNAP will release four papers which capture learning from the urban Ebola Response in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. This was not just about places with insufficient healthcare infrastructure trying to cope with an epidemic. The fact that the outbreak happened in cities, where everything is interconnected, made this not only a healthcare crisis, but also a WASH, livelihoods, protection and education one, characteristics which can also be seen increasingly in urban healthcare crises, such as the current cholera outbreaks in Yemen and Haiti.
It was also not just about an epidemic with three different national patterns, but likely hundreds according to the WHO, all with their own transmission dynamics; all of which were not factored in as such despite how critical the understanding of context is for an urban response to be effective.
For the latest webinar in ALNAP’s urban webinar series, we will hear about the challenges and learnings around the urban-specific aspects of the Ebola response. Specialists who witnessed and acted on the ground will discuss their experiences working in contexts of urban quarantine, navigating population movement and the long road to finding effective ways to communicate and engage with affected people in the response.
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To continue reading about the Ebola outbreak read Humanitarian Alternatives Inaugural Issue by clicking here.