The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Sierra Leone is pleading for more international help to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. On Saturday, the country recorded 121 deaths in one of the single deadliest days since the disease appeared there more than four months ago. At least 678 people have now died in Sierra Leone, with the official toll for West Africa topping 3,400. Dr. Atul Gawande from Harvard Medical School argues, “The epidemic in West Africa is severe, and it’s getting worse fast…this is a...
Ayesha Jacub -
Sometimes it takes a crisis to test existing structures and expose all the fault lines. Ebola has been pummelling its way through West Africa and in addition to the lives claimed by the epidemic, it has exposed the state of Global Health’s leadership as well as the current paradigms through which we view health at the global level.
Leadership
When the first warning calls about the severity of the current Ebola epidemic came from the quarters of the NGO Medecins sans frontieres,...
A health journalist estimates that a quarter of a million people could become affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa by the time Christmas arrives this year. The global response to the crisis has been extremely poor. Rich countries are showing little interest in mounting an adequate response, while the World Health Organisation itself is guilty of ignoring the situation when the virus could have been contained in its early stages. Meanwhile Cuba is the only country in the world that...
Mandisi Majavu -
In his book, Infections and Inequalities, Paul Farmer writes that we live in a world where infections pass easily across borders, while resources, including cumulative scientific knowledge are blocked at customs. The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is a case in point. The World Health Organisation has warned that the number of Ebola cases could rise to 20,000 largely because the medical staff in these West African countries do not have the resources to deal with the rapid spread of...
