There are a number of challenges that the World Health Organisation’s new leader, Ethiopian-born Tedros Ghebreyesus, will have to navigate during his tenure.
Ebola devastated parts of West Africa in 2014 and 2015. Now it’s hit the DRC.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
The Ebola virus is known to occur in the Democratic Republic of Congo and outbreaks are not entirely unexpected. But health authorities must take swift action to contain the outbreak.
The public in Sierra Leone was proactive in reporting suspected Ebola cases.
Reuters/Luc Gnago
The power to overcoming Ebola was in public awareness by performing simple yet basic infection prevention and control measures like washing hands, isolation and reporting suspected cases.
Women in rural Malawi, outside an AIDS hospital. AIDS was the first of the ‘new’ pandemic threats, after bird flu.
Author provided.
An active outbreak of a type of bird flu in China raises concerns about worldwide pandemics. Ebola and Zika viruses still threaten. Here’s why this is not the time to cut funding.
A tuberculosis patient holds his medicines received from the government’s tuberculosis center in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Faisal Mahmood/Reuters
There are a number of stumbling blocks to intra African collaboration. These must be addressed to ensure that research is not duplicated and that findings are shared.
William Isdale speaks with Lawrence Gostin about the lessons we can learn from the global response to last year's Ebola outbreak and the future of global health.
Governments in West Africa and international aid agencies should help facilitate adoptions locally and provide better health care and education to support entire communities.
Kent Brantly at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, August 21 2014.
Tami Chappell/Reuters
A year ago, Dr Kent Brantly became the first person treated for Ebola in the US. The director of Emory University’s Serious Communicable Disease Unit looks back at we have – and haven’t – learned.
A health worker injects a woman with an Ebola vaccine during a trial in Monrovia, February 2 2015.
James Giahyue/Reuters
Was the Ebola vaccine 100% effective, or 100% lucky? The good money is on a percentage somewhere in between, but in truth, we will never know.
Two women walk in front of a billboard, which says “Ebola must go. Stopping Ebola is Everybody’s Business” in Monrovia, Liberia, January 15 2015.
UNMEER/Emmanuel Tobey
Along with better strategies to respond to outbreaks in human populations, we need a stronger focus on surveillance in animals to identify infectious diseases before they pose a risk to human health.
Viral mutation, or ‘genetic drift’, could impact the viability of some drugs being developed to combat Ebola.
NIAID/Flickr
Scientists around the world are trying to develop effective treatments for Ebola infection. But a process of viral mutation, known as “genetic drift”, could potentially compromise their efforts.
The world has been keeping a very close eye on the Ebola virus for nearly a year now following the extraordinarily large outbreak seen in Western Africa, which has so far killed more than 8,000 people…
Ebola has wiped out a third of the world’s gorillas.
David d'O
There is a side to the Ebola crisis that, perhaps understandably, has received little media attention: the threat it poses to our nearest cousins, the great apes of Africa. At this moment in time Ebola…
Ebola isn’t the only disease we need to worry about.
Jason Reed/Reuters
Some experts worry that the Ebola crisis is diverting attention and resources away from neglected diseases with a substantially larger disease incidence.
By sharing their insights and knowledge, African leaders can improve health throughout the world.
The Aspen Institute/Flickr
Ebola has focused the world’s attention on the challenges of health care in Africa. The continent has 11% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s disease burden. It also has just 1.3% of the global…