Resources

The process and practice of diagnosis: Innovations in diagnostics for Lassa fever in Sierra Leone

Chapter 5 of Annie Wilkinson’s PhD thesis, provides a detailed description of health seeking behaviours for Lassa Fever in rural Sierra Leone. In this context, people interpreted and managed Lassa Fever in light of their familiarity with a wide range of other diseases, some of which were viewed as dangerous and others less so; in contexts where sickness, health and treatment were marked by uncertainty; and where hospitals were not necessarily perceived to be sites of good care.  An important insight is that people differentiated ‘big sick’ or ‘hospital sick’ from an ordinary or ‘small’ sick and it was partly on the basis of this distinction that people would choose to access care.

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Power, fairness and trust : understanding and engaging with vaccine trial participants and communities in the setting up the EVOVAC-Salone vaccine trial in Sierra Leone

In this article the authors discuss the implementation of an Ebola vaccine trial in Kambia district in Sierra Leone during and after the epidemic. They analyze the role of social science research for the development of community engagement strategies. The authors give special attention to the analysis of rumours as source of information and explanation about resistance rooted in a much deeper sociopolitical context.

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Rat-Atouille: A mixed method study to characterize rodent hunting and consumption in the context of Lassa fever

This paper investigated the consumption of rodents, including the reservoir species of Lassa fever, and found this is widespread and does not neatly tally against generational or gender lines. Further, it found that the reasons for rodent consumption are multifactorial, including taste preferences, food security, and opportunistic behaviour.

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Emerging disease or emerging diagnosis?: Lassa fever and Ebola in Sierra Leone

This article looks beyond Ebola in 2014 to the history of efforts to control VHFs in the Mano River and challenges the idea that there was a vacuum of knowledge. Highlighted instead are politics of knowledge which have run through global health and which have prioritized particular forms of knowledge and ways of dealing with disease. Ethnographic research on the emergence of Lassa and the subsequent emergence of Ebola in West Africa is presented, focusing on the development of technologies and institutions to detect and manage both viruses.

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Land tenure in Sierra Leone: the law, dualism, and the making of a land policy

This book gives a brief account of the background to the dual land tenure system in force in Sierra Leone and explains the reasons why the dualism derived from the different colonial experience of the former Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone still persists. It also gives an account of the main features of the English derived land law in the Western Area and of the forms of land holding in the Provinces which are governed predominately by customary law.

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