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Mail & Guardian

Ebola

latest news & developments
PUBLIC HEALTH

Ebola is back. So are the double standards

Just four years after COVID-19, the US is demanding an Ebola quarantine camp in Kenya, while Western countries impose travel bans on African nations. This article explores the…

  • Linda Nordling
12 min read
The virus takes its name from the Ebola River, near the site of one of the first recorded outbreaks in what is now the DRC, in 1976.
ALLIED DEMOCRATIC FORCES ADF

Ebola, conflict and disease surveillance

The virus takes its name from the Ebola River, near the site of one of the first recorded outbreaks in what is now the DRC, in 1976. Four of these six species are known to cause…

  • Anthony Ohemeng-Boamah
4 min read
Hazardous: A health worker carries a baby suspected of having Ebola into an MSF-supported Ebola treatment centre in Butembo, DRC. But because of attacks this centre has been closed. (John Wessels/AFP)
AFRICA CDC

Q&A: Africa’s new order for achieving health security

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s plan may help the continent emerge successfully from the Covid-19 pandemic and respond to other threats

  • Syriacus Buguzi
4 min read
Bitter pill for complementary medicine sector
ACCESS

Time for Africa to take control of its own health

Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya among 27 countries yet to sign the treaty for the establishment of the African Medicines Agency.

  • Githinji Gitahi
4 min read
A man wears a traditional Kankurang mask along the beach in the popular tourist area of Senegambia in Banjul on December 6, 2021. (Photo: John Wessels/AFP)
ABDALLA HAMDOK

The Continent: Africa A-Z of 2021

The highlights of 2021 in Africa

  • Samira Sawlani
  • The Continent
9 min read
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson answers questions during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, in Downing Street on November 5, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Leon Neal – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
BORIS JOHNSON

UK govt botched initial Covid response: MPs’ probe

Britain has suffered one of the highest tolls in Europe with nearly 138 000 Covid-19 deaths since March last year, raising questions about why it has fared worse than comparable…

  • Jitendra Joshi
  • Joe Jackson
4 min read
Billboard in Freetown, Sierra Leone reads “Ebola, Survivors are our Heroes & Heroines. Stop The Stigma !!!”
AFCON

Africa in brief: August 21 – 28

What’s been happening on the continent this week?

  • The Continent
4 min read
An agent of the National Institute of Public Hygiene (INHP) vaccinates a doctor against the Ebola virus, at the University Hospital of Cocody during a vaccination operation of health personnel after the first Ebola patient was brought in, in Cocody on August 16, 2021. – Ivory Coast began a roll-out of vaccinations against Ebola on August 16, 2021, after the country recorded its first known case of the disease since 1994, the health ministry said. “Health workers, close relatives and contacts of the victim” were the first to be vaccinated, getting jabs from 5,000 doses sent from Guinea, spokesman Germain Mahan Sehi said. (Photo by Sia KAMBOU / AFP) (Photo by SIA KAMBOU/AFP via Getty Images)
COTE D IVOIRE

Côte d’Ivoire starts Ebola jabs after first case in decades

Ivorian health workers had previously said that vaccinations of “targeted groups” had already begun on Sunday

  • Agence France Presse
2 min read
ALLOYCIOUS DAVID

West Africa readies for Ebola battle

Guinea is fighting the virus with a vaccine used in the DRC, while their neighbours Sierra Leone and Liberia increase border surveillance

  • Abdul S Brima
5 min read
More than 50 women accuse aid workers in the DRC of sexual exploitation and abuse, according to an investigation by The New Humanitarian and Thomson Reuters Foundation.
ALIMA

Women accuse aid workers of sexual abuse during the DRC’s Ebola crisis

More than 50 women have accused Ebola aid workers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and leading nongovernmental organisations of sexual exploitation and abuse in the…

  • Robert Flummerfelt
  • Nellie Peyton
12 min read
Ebola was first identified in what is now the DRC in 1976 and named after the nearby Ebola River. (File Photo)
COVID 19

Human health, animal health and environmental health are inextricably linked

To take care of ourselves, we must take care of the world around us

  • Inger Andersen
  • Jimmy Smith
4 min read
Bias for academic qualifications over vocational training has led to an undersupply of skills in crucial areas such as equipping people to become artisans and entrepreneurs.
AUDREY AZOULAY

Covid-19 deepens the educational divide

With the closure of schools, learning has moved to online platforms across the world, but a UNESCO report said only 12% of households in the least-developed countries have…

  • Bongekile Macupe
3 min read
The virus takes its name from the Ebola River, near the site of one of the first recorded outbreaks in what is now the DRC, in 1976.
CHOLERA

The coping mechanisms the DRC is putting in place as it faces Ebola, measles and Covid-19

The DRC has systematically gone about strengthening health infrastructure, engaging the community and doing better research

  • Yap Boum
5 min read
Endless: Footage from a CBS broadcast in March 1991 shows Rodney King being beaten by police officers. (Video George Holliday)
BLACK LIVES MATTER

Images of black death satisfy disturbing desires and purposes

The protests sweeping the United States after the latest police killing of a black man again speak to the ability of images to evoke powerful emotional responses

  • Patrick Gathara
3 min read
The recent news of evictions and mistreatment of African students in China during the Covid-19 pandemic is rooted in a history of violence and discrimination
BENIN

A brief history of anti-black violence in China

The recent news of evictions and mistreatment of African students in China during the Covid-19 pandemic is rooted in a history of violence and discrimination

  • Winslow Robertson
11 min read