How to Confront the Threat of Ebola? Arguing for Reinforced Efforts to Promote Transnational Solidarity

Abstract

AbstractThe Ebola epidemic in 2014 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone demonstrated for the first time that in an interdependent and interconnected world the Ebola virus is no longer a negligible threat limited in its lethal impact to a few isolated African villages. By linking Carol Gould's concept of transnational solidarity with the concept of transnational advocacy networks, this article argues that a variety of actors from governments, academia, civil society and the private sector must join forces to establish a mechanism with the potential to considerably accelerate research and development (R&D) on Ebola. By presenting the key logic underlying three existing public–private partnerships on neglected diseases, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), the TB Alliance and the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the article tries to identify the principal characteristics of such a new mechanism to successfully pool resources, knowledge and expertise for the development of tested and effective Ebola treatment. The article concludes by emphasising that the present atmosphere of transnational solidarity with those African countries affected by the Ebola epidemic represents a unique window of opportunity to create such a mechanism.