Evanson Z Sambala

Dr Evanson Sambala is a Research Fellow at the school of Public Health. He is a trained epidemiologist with specific interests and experience in infectious disease surveillance and control. He has worked on surveillance systems, monitoring and evaluation for the last 7 years.

Evanson continues to work on influenza and the Ebola virus disease research, related to capacity strengthening for disease management. Evanson’s main research interest focuses on the epidemiology of infectious diseases; transmission; vaccinology, public health ethics and policy.

His current research spans around the ethics of pandemic planning and responses, specifically looking at how policymakers balance the moral disputes and ethical issues that arise in the fields of medicine and public health.

Evanson’s recent work investigates how the philosophy of Ubuntu can be applied to public health decisions and how this can be translated to policy, including balancing the moral conflicts and tensions that arise between civil liberties and public health interventions during epidemics and pandemics.

Evanson’s recent work moves the domain of and engagement with moral reasoning and ethics from a field of philosophy as shaped by the global north, to the everyday values, decision making and consequent practices of policymakers in much of Africa.