Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic, With a New Preface and Epilogue

Pardis Sabeti; Lara Salahi

Published by Harvard University Press 2021

Outbreak Culture

The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic, With a New Preface and Epilogue

Pardis Sabeti and Lara Salahi

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674269750

Overview
Contents

About this book

An award-winning genetic researcher and a tenacious journalist examine each phase of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the largest and deadliest of its kind. Their postmortem identifies factors that kept key information from reaching doctors, complicated the government's response to the crisis, and left responders unprepared for the next outbreak.

Reviews

A must read for anyone with an interest in disease outbreaks, pandemics, and the international response during an emerging crisis.
-- Choice

[Sabeti and Pardis] uncover the chaos behind the world’s response to the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak, and posit how it could have been avoided…Rooted in personal stories and testimonies, the book is a critical, poignant postmortem of the epidemic.
-- Erin Blakemore Washington Post

Puts a human face on the challenges by telling the stories of researchers, clinicians, and patients…The power of Outbreak Culture is its universality. It describes dynamics common at varying levels in every humanitarian emergency…A much-needed call for greater justice next time.
-- Nahid Bhadelia Nature

The authors deftly weave surveys, interviews, and retrospectives on previous outbreaks into a concise depiction of the Ebola epidemic, with particular focus on human behaviors that exacerbated the course of the outbreak.
-- William E. Pewen Science

During epidemics and crises we see the best and worst of humanity. Outbreak Culture provides a thought-provoking account of the behaviors and ensuing politics that transpired throughout the Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016. This book offers important lessons, critically needed, to ensure that we are better prepared for the next epidemic.
-- Peter Piot, Director, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

A forceful and instructive account, as passionate and heartfelt as it is learned, Outbreak Culture reveals the experience most Ebola responders had but could not name. Through laboratory data and survey responses from hundreds of individuals directly involved in the world’s largest public health endeavor, Sabeti and Salahi uncover competition, sabotage, fear, blame, and disorganization bordering on chaos, features that are seen in just about any lethal epidemic.
-- Paul Farmer, cofounder of Partners in Health

A heroic saga of human nature at its very best and worst. Sabeti and Salahi shed light on the fragmented and uncoordinated global response to the Ebola epidemic. All of us who respond to outbreaks now have a mandatory moral and cultural guide.
-- Joseph B. McCormick, coauthor of The Virus Hunters: Dispatches from the Frontline

This book, written eloquently by a journalist and a scientist, highlights many lessons learned from the Ebola epidemic. The need for transparency, collaboration, and coordination among individual actors and agencies is more important than ever.
-- Sylvia Blyden, former Sierra Leone Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Map of West Africa Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
PROLOGUE THE PEOPLE’S FIGHTER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 SETTING FOR DISASTER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2 THE CRUCIBLE OF OUTBREAK RESPONSE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3 THE CASE FOR COLLABORATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
4 THE WAVERING RESPONSE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
5 DISTRUST IN A CULTURE OF COMPASSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
7 INVESTMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
8 EBOLA’S FALLOUT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
9 NAVIGATING THE NEXT EPIDEMIC Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
EPILOGUE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 304

eBook

Published: September 28, 2021
ISBN: 9780674269750