scholarly journals The current Ebola outbreak: old and new contexts

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1378-1380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saverio Bellizzi

Within the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa, separate scenarios reflect old contexts with well-known strategies to face the epidemic on one side and completely new and unprecedented situations requiring new approaches on the other side. While Senegal and Nigeria represent success stories on the implementation of appropriate standard public health measures for containment, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea require a major and innovative scale of actions to halt even more catastrophic consequences.

Author(s):  
Ulrike Gut

This chapter describes the history, role, and structural properties of English in the West African countries the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, the anglophone part of Cameroon, and the island of Saint Helena. It provides an overview of the historical phases of trading contact, British colonization and missionary activities and describes the current role of English in these multilingual countries. Further, it outlines the commonalities and differences in the vocabulary, phonology, morphology, and syntax of the varieties of English spoken in anglophone West Africa. It shows that Liberian Settler English and Saint Helenian English have distinct phonological and morphosyntactic features compared to the other West African Englishes. While some phonological areal features shared by several West African Englishes can be identified, an areal profile does not seem to exist on the level of morphosyntax.


Author(s):  
Oluwatoyin Oduntan

The case for narrating the history of slavery and emancipation through the biography of enslaved Africans is strongly supported by the life and experiences of Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Kidnapped into slavery in 1821, recaptured and settled in Sierra Leone in 1822, he became a missionary in 1845, founder of the Niger mission in 1857, and Bishop of the Niger Mission in 1864. His life and career covered the span of the 19th century during which revolutionary forces like jihadist revolutions, the abolition of the slave trade, the rise of a new Westernized elite, and European colonization created the roots of the modern state system in West Africa. He was intricately tied to the Christian Missionary Society (CMS), Britain’s antislavery evangelical movement, resulting in Ajayi becoming the poster face of slavery, its acclaimed product of abolitionism, the preeminent advocate of evangelical emancipation, and the organizer of practical emancipation in West Africa. The leader of a very small group of Africans who worked diligently against the slave trade and domestic slavery, Ajayi also became a victim of the use of that agenda by imperialists. Thus, the contrasts of his life (i.e., slavery/freedom, nationalist/hybrid, preacher/investor, leader/weakling, linguist/literalist, etc.) were celebrated by himself, his patrons, and his evangelical followers on one hand, and denounced by his critics on the other. They underline the disagreements over his legacy, and indeed over the understanding of the institution of slavery, abolition, and emancipation in West Africa.


2021 ◽  
pp. 211-214
Author(s):  
Marcelo Knobel

AbstractHumanity is experiencing a moment of great uncertainty. This is not the first time a pandemic threatens the lives of millions of people. However, the speed with which governments and scientists are reacting to events is unprecedented. In an incredibly short time after the discovery of the virus, public health measures were implemented, and the development of defences in the form of public policies, medical therapies, and vaccines began. At this precarious moment, when the proliferation of information (and misinformation) from a variety of sources contribute to the spread of panic, universities and the scientific community emerge as the best and most reliable sources of information. It is only highly qualified specialists who can truly address the pandemic and its terrible economic, political, and public health consequences.


Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. W. Jeffreys

Eastern Whites in Western AfricaMy article on Zaburro was written in the expectation that it would stimulate discussion over the antiquity of maize in West Africa, and the matter has been taken up by Professor Portères (1959), on whose publication Mr. Willett has relied for certain inferences in his article in Africa for January 1962. Among the interesting points brought forward by Professor Portères (1959, vi) are the groups of African vernacular names which indicate that maize was introduced by foreigners, strangers, whitemen. A similar observation had been made more than a hundred years ago by Koelle (a. 1854, v), a missionary in Sierra Leone, who wrote: ‘…the names for onion, rice, maize, &c. show that in many countries [in Africa] these articles have been introduced by foreigners.…’ Who these foreigners were Koelle, with his long list of vernacular words for whiteman to choose from, leaves indeterminate. On the other hand, underlying Professor Portères's view that it was the Portuguese or the Dutch who brought maize to the Guynee coast, lies the assumption that the foreigners, the strangers, the whitemen indicated by these vernacular names were the Portuguese and the Dutch.


2019 ◽  
Vol 147 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. DeSilva ◽  
T. Styles ◽  
C. Basler ◽  
F. L. Moses ◽  
F. Husain ◽  
...  

AbstractIn early October 2014, 7 months after the 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa began, a cluster of reported deaths in Koinadugu, a remote district of Sierra Leone, was the first evidence of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in the district. Prior to this event, geographic isolation was thought to have prevented the introduction of Ebola to this area. We describe our initial investigation of this cluster of deaths and subsequent public health actions after Ebola was confirmed, and present challenges to our investigation and methods of overcoming them. We present a transmission tree and results of whole genome sequencing of selected isolates to identify the source of infection in Koinadugu and demonstrate transmission between its villages. Koinadugu's experience highlights the danger of assuming that remote location and geographic isolation can prevent the spread of Ebola, but also demonstrates how deployment of rapid field response teams can help limit spread once Ebola is detected.


BioMedica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2S) ◽  
pp. 47-50
Author(s):  
Zeenaf Aslam ◽  
Mansoor Ghani ◽  
Samina Kauser

<p>Current plight of COVID-19 in developing countries entails uncertain prognosis, impending severe shortages of resources for testing and treatment and inadequate safety measure for health care providers. The imposition of unfamiliar public health measures that may infringe on personal freedoms, large and growing financial losses, and conflicting messages from authorities are among the other major stressors that undoubtedly will contribute to widespread emotional distress and increased risk for mental fatigue associated with COVID-19.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Sessou ◽  
Joseph Nelson Siewe Fodjo ◽  
Charles Sossa Jérôme ◽  
Souaïbou Farougou ◽  
Robert Colebunders

Author(s):  
ZULFKAR LATIEF QADRIE ◽  
SHAHID UD DIN WANI ◽  
SURYA PRAKASH GAUTAM ◽  
M. KHALID AHMED KHAN

The outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause during December 2019 was reported from Wuhan City, Hubei province capital in China as its epicenter. Symptoms of pneumonia in several patients admitted to hospitals from Wuhan, China during December 2019. The sudden increase in the patients having the same symptoms, in due course the contributing means was isolated from the infected populace. In the present short report, we have summarized various public health measures, viz., early marking of the suspected patient, diagnosis, and supervision of the suspected cases that will help prevent Coronavirus disease in 2019. At the start, it was named as the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and later it has been named Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recently. Within a few weeks of a short period, the virus affected the other of China after Wuhan and later in two to three months, it is present in more than 140 countries around the globe and adding. As of 03rd August 2020, there have been 17.6 million established cases worldwide, and 680, 894 deaths have been documented, with 11,460,074 recovered. Worldwide, multiple trails are going on with the hope to find the treatment and some have positive results. On the other hand, because no vaccine is offered, the precautionary methods are the best way to fight the virus.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Tamás Hajnáczky ◽  

During the interwar years in Hungary, the authorities approached the issue of Gypsy settlements mainly through regulations concerning public health. Measures to try to settle the so-called “wandering Gypsies” resulted indirectly in the creation of new Gypsy settlements. The conflicting interests of government ministries and the local authorities became all the more apparent, as they both expected the provision of the accompanying necessary funds to resolve the “Gypsy issue” from the other party. The implementation of the decrees issued by the central authorities were often obstructed and faced criticism from officials, doctors, and gendarmerie responsible for their implementation at the local level. During the period in question, the content of the “Gypsy issue” gradually changed: during the 1920s it mostly meant the setllement of “wandering Gypsies”; while later, in the 1930s, along with the old ones new challenges arose related to the Gypsy settlements, which increased both in size and number. The author uses little-researched primary sources: resolutions approved by the Hungarian authorities and Hungarian interwar periodicals such as: the Csendőrségi Lapok (Gendarmerie Journals), Magyar Közigazgatás (Hungarian Public Administration) and Népegészségügy (Public Health).


2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Nusser ◽  
W Kiehl ◽  
B Twisselmann

Timely public health measures and close collaboration between the health authorities, physicians, the patient, and contacts can limit infection transmission, as the following report from Germany’s surveillance bulletin shows (1). A 23 year old Indian man arrived on 1 October 2001 in a small town in southern Germany to start a course of studies at a college for higher education. He shared his room with another Indian man; the other five rooms in the residence were occupied by 10 fellow students from different countries who attended one of two colleges.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document