Global Events-Capella University Essays

Global Events: The Case of Ebola in Liberia

Local and National Response to Ebola Outbreak

Ebola Virus was first experienced in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Other countries that have reported high cases of Ebola include Sierra Leone, Mali, Nigeria, Guinea, and Liberia. In Liberia, the disease was first discovered on March 2014, and it was characterized by severe diarrhea, headache, fever, chest pain, nausea, vomiting and severe muscle aches. The total reported and tested cases amounted to 10678 while laboratory cases and deaths amounted to 3163 and 4810, respectively (Dixon & Schafer, 2014). The Liberian Ministry of health and Social Welfare conducted investigations in the rural areas, which was a challenge because the disorder had spread widely in the rural areas. This called for support from other international organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO), Red Cross, and CDC.

Liberia being a third world country, most of its rural areas have poor infrastructural networks and communication channels including mobile phone services, road access, and transport infrastructure, which called for flexible interventions to be implemented to enable easy access to the affected areas (Gatherer, 2014). The national plan for treatment of Ebola began in October when the country implemented the strategy of isolation and treatment of Ebola; this was to enhance the states’ ability to investigate the outbreaks in the rural area (Gatherer, 2014). The response took nine months and by November 2014, patients in the rural areas who were diagnosed and treated increased while the rate of rural outbreaks reduced as a result of quick response and excellent coordination among the agencies.

The National surveillance and response office deployed staffs to different counties that had reported cases of Ebola to focus on surveillance development and data management. The teams were also supposed to build capacity to help the country health ministry in outbreak investigations, tracking, and health communications. Towards the end of the year, the epidemic was reported to have spread albeit in lower rates in Monrovia and Montserraddo County. Apart from the reduction of patients with Ebola, the health workers had a chance to focus on individual transmission chains. The country was declared Ebola-free by WHO on several occasions, but the epidemic later emerged in various regions (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). The CDC staff set up a laboratory and strengthening epidemiology to ensure infection prevention and control of Ebola.

The Impact of Social Factors on the Response to Ebola Virus in Liberia

In most developing countries, health disparities emanate from differences based on culture, beliefs, gender, political stability, social attitudes, race, and social class. These factors affect the country’s ability to respond to various epidemics and natural disasters. First, Liberia is a developing country that is economically unstable and highly prone to natural disasters such as earthquake, hurricane, or flood that cause great damages or loss of life (Wex et al., 2014).  Additionally, the country has inadequate and substandard infrastructures to address epidemics and natural disasters when they happen. Therefore, the Liberian government could not afford to procure and use advanced health technology to identify and prevent the spread of Ebola (Wex et al., 2014). Secondly, Liberia lacked sufficient medical personnel and infrastructures, which contributed to poor response and control of the disease.

Culture and beliefs in traditional medicine were also challenges that led to spread of Ebola in the villages of Monrovia and Meliandou. Liberians have a history of using traditional medicine, therefore, the residents could not seek proper health care hence contributing to faster spread of the disease. This also hindered intervention from international agencies because the virus was not discovered on time.

Besides relying on the traditional healers, people in the rural areas live in congested ecological environments. However, these people have managed to address any kind of diseases, therefore, it was difficult to convince them that Ebola was a virus that needed a serious attention and treatment (Team, 2014). They were also unfamiliar with the preventive procedures like disinfecting houses and setting up fever checks. Liberians also had a fear of allowing the foreigners to take them to hospitals. In addition, their traditions contributed to the spread of the virus because they observed their ancestral ways of mourning for the dead such as touching the corpse before being buried irrespective of the cause of death.

Barriers to Health Care Services during Ebola Outbreak

Lack of proper capacity in the country made control measures difficult, which led to wider spread of the virus. Isolation and treatment are the strategies that were used to mitigate the spread of Ebola. However, this was impossible because the country had no financial capacity to address the outbreak and had to seek support from other nations and international agencies. Another challenge was a lack of sufficient and appropriate medical tools and absence of enough health care facilities (Rull, Kickbusch, & Lauer, 2015).

Planning and managerial processes for addressing an outbreak are usually made prior occurrence of any outbreak, however, the Liberian government had no stipulated strategies on how to fight against Ebola, which made the virus to spread faster (Rull et al., 2015). In addition, personal protection measures were important before starting to treat the infected people because Ebola virus is highly infectious. Moreover, the medical personnel could not access the affected areas because of poor transport and communication infrastructures.

Role of International and Altruistic Organizations

International organizations like WHO, Red Cross, and CDC helped in reducing the cases of Ebola by restricting people from moving freely to the affected areas. The organizations tried to curb the disease by supporting surveillance, engaging the community and setting up laboratory services that helped in tracking and controlling the outbreaks. The Red Cross provided enough health care services to ensure that more people accessed the health services for testing.

The US agency of development office and foreign affairs helped in providing technical support and training to the Liberian medical personnel and them on how to handle the infected patients (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Liberia could not afford isolation units for the Ebola patients, and the CDC came in by financing the ministry of health to build isolation units in major hospitals. The idea helped in controlling outbreaks faster and provided care for the patients in remote areas (Team, 2014).

Role of the Professional Nurse

Nurses played vital roles in attending to Ebola patients and isolating them from the unaffected population. They educated the people on how to prevent the virus from spreading in addition to offering diagnostic and treatment services (DeMoro, 2014). Even without adequate protection clothing like gloves, rubber shoes and even protective suits, they were committed to assisting the red cross in providing the basic needs to the affected people.

Besides providing treatment and civic education, the nurses decided to volunteer to conduct a door to door campaign to educate people in the rural areas who had no access to health centres or any means of communications that could inform them about the outbreak. Professional nurses provided help that was relevant in assessing and making decisions on how to promote patient outcomes. They also offered follow-up services and educated the patients on how to handle the psychosocial, developmental, cultural, and spiritual needs for the affected families.

Conclusion

Ebola is a severe and highly infectious pandemic in humans, which causes fatal and an acute illness if untreated. Successful control of Ebola outbreaks requires community engagement and application of different interventions strategies such as social mobilization, having modern laboratory tools and services, infection control and prevention practices, safe burials, and contact and surveillance tracing. Early case identification, recognition, and isolation in addition to contact management are necessary to rapidly respond to the outbreak and reaching the newly affected regions.

References

DeMoro, A. (2014). The Underreported Side of the Ebola Crisis | National Nurses United. Nationalnursesunited.org. Retrieved 24 June 2017, from http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/the-underreported-side-of-the-ebola-crisis/

Dixon, M. G., & Schafer, I. J. (2014). 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa – Case Counts. Retrieved 24 June 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/case-counts.html

Gatherer, D. (2014). The 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa. Journal of general virology, 95(8), 1619-1624.

 Rull, M., Kickbusch, I., & Lauer, H. (2015). Policy Debate| International Responses to Global Epidemics: Ebola and Beyond. International Development Policy| Revue internationale de politique de développement, (6.2).

 Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing: population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Team, W. E. R. (2014). Ebola virus disease in West Africa—the first 9 months of the epidemic and forward projections. N Engl J Med, 2014(371), 1481-1495.

Wex, F., Schryen, G., Feuerriegel, S., & Neumann, D. (2014). Emergency response in natural disaster management: Allocation and scheduling of rescue units. European Journal of Operational Research, 235(3), 697-708.