International News
15 MARCH 2021
International News
Public mistrust could undermine Ebola response in Guinea Maxine Betteridge-Moes, MA Media in Development The World Health Organization began administering Ebola vaccines in Guinea just nine days after the latest outbreak was declared in Gouécké in the far southern region on 14 February. The swift rollout of the vaccination campaign came after international calls to action to halt the spread of the deadly disease that ravaged parts of West Africa between 2013 and 2016 and killed approximately 11,300 people. ‘Time is of the essence,’ Mohammed Mukhier, Regional Director for Africa at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) said in a statement. ‘The resurgence of the virus in Guinea comes at the worst possible time when the country is already facing the Covid-19 pandemic … While we are extremely concerned, we are also reassured by the lessons we learned from previous outbreaks and by recent medical advances.’ The development of two Ebola vaccines since the last epidemic will be a key intervention in bringing the resurgence under control. On 23 February, the Guinean government received a shipment of 11,000 vaccine doses from a global stockpile in Geneva, Switzerland. A vaccination campaign began in the N’Zérékoré prefecture, where the first confirmed cases and deaths have been reported. But according to reports from local and international media, widespread misinformation about the disease has resulted in some peoples’ denial of its resurgence, while mistrust of authorities has meant others have resisted taking part in innoculation campaigns. ‘The key issue here is to rebuild the trust between communities and health authorities,’ Al Jazeera correspondent Nicolas Haque
The Ebola vaccine is an important intervention in controlling the outbreak, but many Guineans are untrusting of health authorities (Credit: World Health Organization)
said in a podcast. ‘The last outbreak … left a deep trauma for the people of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.’ Ebola spreads through infected bodily fluids and unsafe burials are a known danger in transmission. Those from the most affected areas remember their loved ones being taken away to medical centres and treated in isolation, never to be seen again. Many were not allowed to bury the deceased with local traditions. But medical anthropologists and researchers have pointed out the importance of understanding and respecting local communities’ concerns in disease response. In a research paper on social resistance to Ebola response in Guinea in 2016, University of Cambridge anthropologist James Fairhead observed that ‘Western common sense’ of disease outbreak and control silenced local
framing, and the intervention of Ebola treatment centres undermined local social practice. ‘With the arrival of Ebola ... political authority was bolstered by the humanitarian biopower associated with [it] and ... came to be perceived as ‘the enemy,’’’ Fairhead wrote. He cited advice to circumvent social isolation that included ‘enabling families to cook for patients, supplying mobile phones to communicate with those in isolation, treating suspicions seriously, and enabling highly respectful burials.’ In order to address community mistrust directly, Health Minister Remy Lamah, who is a native of Gouécké, travelled to his hometown to convince people of the benefits of taking the vaccine. Local government officials and prominent religious leaders have also been publicly vaccinated. In an
interview with Guineenews, the WHO’s representative to Guinea, Georges Ki-Zerbo, said they were working with various NGOs on the ground to support community awareness and response. ‘The idea is to explain what is going on based on the facts and to effectively avoid panic and rumors that can interfere with the quality of the response,’ he said. ‘This supposes that we listen to the communities ... in order to have their support for all the interventions.’ Lessons learned from the previous epidemic, which killed approximately 2,500 Guineans, will be put to the test in the coming weeks. But Lamah told AFP news agency that the country is largely prepared. ‘I think that in six weeks, we can be done with this disease,’ he said.
Can Covax help poorer countries to get access to Covid-19 vaccines? Deniz Demirag, MSc Environment, Politics and Development The World Health Organization (WHO) recently launched a vaccine allocation plan with 156 countries, known as ‘Covax,’ to enable a rapid and fair global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. 64 higher-income countries have already joined the program, ensuring the research, purchase and distribution of the vaccines is divided equally among the participating countries. Governments, manufacturers, organisations and individuals have so far contributed around $1.4bn towards the program to effectively deliver two billion doses of safe vaccines by the end of 2021. Although this initiative has been described as a landmark moment in public health history, it is not without its faults. Despite the planned global immunisation by the end of 2021, experts claim that poorer countries may not be sufficiently
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vaccinated until at least 2024. Hopes for an equitable global distribution of vaccines were crushed, as wealthy countries like the UK, US, Israel and the EU not only aim to vaccinate their entire population by the end of 2021, but are also buying more vaccines than they need. This will limit the amount of vaccines available for the remaining 84 countries, who will unfortunately face shortages as a result. In countries with large populations spread over a wide geographical area, such as China and India, providing vaccines to the vulnerable is a huge endeavour. Richer countries already have the means to provide and manufacture vaccine doses effectively. However, experts say that this critical stage in the pandemic requires international collaboration if we hope to transition to a new normal. Epidemiologists say that developed countries will greatly benefit from worldwide immunisation
because there is no guarantee that the virus won’t mutate and infect those who already are vaccinated. Ghana recently became the first country to receive 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine. Concerns about the scheme centre around the speed of the process rather than the cost. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commented: ‘If there are no vaccines to buy, money is irrelevant.’ A proposal introduced by South Africa to waive intellectual property rights so the vaccines can be produced around the world has been resisted by wealthy countries and large pharmaceutical corporations. Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) said it would have made a difference in the vaccine rollout if South Africa had the capacity to manufacture their own vaccines. Groups have also called on richer nations to donate some of their stockpiled vaccines to poorer countries.
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