Ebola: how a people's science helped end an epidemic

Abstract

For those who had the impression that the 2014 Ebola epidemic was brought to a halt solely by the arrival of international responders, who set up treatment centres, this book by anthropologist Paul Richards will be an eye opener. It provides a more complete explanation of how the crisis was ended and what lessons might be drawn from this for combating future epidemics. Readers get to know, in a few chapters, how community action in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia helped avert a global health crisis. Local communities, vilified by the press for not conducting burials in a safe way and therefore helping to spread the virus were, according to this book, instrumental in responding to the epidemic. Richards's book is short, concise and designed for a non-specialist audience. He does discuss theories of behavioural change rather a lot, which might detract from the book's accessibility, but it is overall easy to read and very valuable in terms of understanding underlying and often erroneous assumptions about the role of the affected communities in the three west African countries. The book shows that the initial days of the international response will need to be properly examined in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future and to better accommodate people's needs to react to a health threat in their own manner.