Resources

Healthcare providers on the frontlines: A qualitative investigation of the social and emotional impact of delivering health services during Sierra Leone’s Ebola epidemic

This paper describes the stigma experienced by health care workers during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, and recommends psychological support mechanisms for medical staff working in epidemic contexts.

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Social consequences of Ebola containment measures in Liberia

This study of quarantine during the Ebola epidemic in Liberia also shows that state-enforced quarantine, with a mandatory prohibition of movement, raised condemnation, strengthened stigmatization and created serious socio-economic distress.

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Burials in times of Ebola: Do's and don'ts - issues of acceptability

This short guide was elaborated by the authors at the beginning of the Ebola Virus disease outbreak in May 2014 in Gueckedou base on a fieldwork in the area. It compiles the wishes collected from villages where people died from Ebola virus diseases.

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Improving burial practices and cemetery management during an Ebola virus disease epidemic — Sierra Leone, 2014

This piece is a summary of an assessment conducted in Sierra Leone on the acceptability of safe, nontraditional burial practices and cemetery management during the Ebola Outbreak. Both measures aimed the control of the virus transmission. Some of the findings were: scarce burial teams, miscoordination among Ebola response bodies, lack of systematic procedures for testing and reporting results on dead bodies from Laboratories, inadequate cementerie space, no acceptance of safe burial practices by communities. These finding informed a standard operating procedure (SOP) for safe, dignified medical burials.

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Treating corpses like bundles of firewood. On the social production of indifference in the time of Ebola (Guinea)

The authors reflect on the impacts of the declaration of global emergency on the way dead bodies were treated during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Guinea: focusing on problems related to anonymous graves and the impossibility of organizing burial ceremonies.

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Community-centered responses to Ebola in urban Liberia: The view from below

The article presents information on community-based epidemic control priorities and identifies innovative local strategies for containing EVD in Liberia. The text also offers some suggestions from participants like the integration of families in the surveillance system and the declaration of National Memorial Day among others.

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Hospital domestics: Care work in a Kenyan hospital

Though not about Lassa fever specifically, this paper explores the division of labour between medical staff and familial caregivers in Kenya.

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Perceptions of burden of caregiving by informal caregivers of cancer patients attending University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar, Nigeria

Though not about Lassa fever specifically, this study shows the burden experienced by informal caregivers of cancer patients in Nigeria. Most caregivers experienced this burden as moderate or severe.

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