African and global health care prospects: the importance of the use of knowledge
The fight against infectious diseases necessarily involves medical entomology and biology, medicine and public health. Other dimensions are influential in the field of international health care cooperation because of pressures inflicted on national policies, particularly in Africa. Based on a historical review of cooperation and the analysis of its evolutions over the past 15 years, we highlight the paradox of world health safety: owing to targeting almost exclusively the AIDS pandemic over the course of decades, disequilibria can be observed in health care systems, especially with regard to epidemiological alert and surveillance and health care personnel, two essential pillars in the control of infectious diseases. We suggest that the Ebola epidemic and its rapid propagation in several West African countries might be a result of over a decade security policies relating to AIDS. The private sector cannot take the place of this democratic governance, neither in rich nor in poor countries. It is time to restore the standards for national and world governance in this field.