Countries in the West Africa region are in a very different position to seven years ago. They now have the experience of the past as well as new tools to tackle Ebola.
Until now the U.S. hasn’t coordinated its disaster aid and development spending.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images
The Trump White House questioned the value of foreign aid and neglected policies related to helping low-income countries. But US aid had already needed improvement.
To better anticipate and manage the emergence of new pandemics, a paradigm shift is needed to take into account the complex interactions between human health, animal health, the environment and the economy.
One approach to figure out what to expect is to look at the experiences of different countries after they closed schools due to previous pandemics, war or industrial action.
An imam leads the prayer during the funeral for COVID-19 coronavirus victims at a mosque in Cape Town.
MARCO LONGARI /AFP - GettyImages
Bernard Taverne, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD); Firmin Kra, Université Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké; Francis Akindès, Université Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké; Gabriele Laborde-Balen, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD); Khoudia Sow, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), and Marc Egrot, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)
It is important that procedures surrounding funerals are developed by public health officials alongside traditional and religious authorities.
Pangolins have been found with covonaviruses that are genetically similar to the one afflicting humans today.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images
A COVID-19-type pandemic had long been predicted, but our warnings weren't heeded. We need to start rethinking our approach to health now – even in countries like New Zealand.
Authorities around the world can do more to ensure that correct information and messages on the pandemic reach everybody.
A woman walks past a graffiti by Anthony Kihoro in Kenya sensitising people about the coronavirus.
Dennis Sigwe/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Bats have been the reservoir for recent disease outbreaks, including SARS and the current COVID-19 pandemic. But it's human activity that allows the virus to cross over.
Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence suffer trauma that lasts long beyond medical crises.
Corbis News via GettyImages
During epidemics, the measures taken to protect populations and to keep health systems afloat leave women and girls vulnerable to violence.
Grafitti artists from Mathare Roots Youth Organisation pose in front of their latest mural advocating safety practices to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nairobi/Kenya.
TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images
COVID-19 is having a significant impact on the health, economic and social status of slum dwellers.
The pangolin, one of the most poached animals in the world, could have served as an intermediate host in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans.
Wahyudi/AFP
Covid-19, like other major epidemics, is not unrelated to the biodiversity and climate crisis we are experiencing.
Nurse Cheedy Jaja in Sierre Leone in 2015, where he helped treat patients with Ebola during the West Africa outbreak.
Rebecca E. Rollins/Partners in Health
Nurses on the front lines of a pandemic need education, training and institutional support.
A member of the South African National Defence Force hands out pamphlets informing township residents about COVID-19 in Johannesburg.
Kim Ludbrook/EPA-EFE
Part-time lecturer at the Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Lecturer at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia
Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, and Professor of Neurology, University of Liverpool, University of Liverpool