Panel details

Panel organiser(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online
Number of paper presentations	4

Abstract

The 2018-20 Ebola epidemic in Eastern DRC was the first major outbreak of the disease since West Africa 2013-16. Dramatic biomedical progress was made before and during the Kivu outbreak, including the rapid development of effective treatments, vaccines, and care interventions, yet this did not result in any tangible reduction of mortality. Response efforts were marked by an extraordinary budget (estimated between $0.8 and $1.2 billion) dispersed amongst a plethora of national and international scientific, public health, UN and humanitarian organisations, as well as the Congolese government and state institutions.
This panel invites papers that explore the consequences of a highly fatal disease spreading amongst carers and social networks in a region of political instability, extreme violence, and endemic corruption. What was the accountability of the actors involved towards affected populations?

Possible papers :
o Natalie Roberts, Medical Doctor and Director of Studies - CRASH: MSF and Ebola in Nord Kivu : Positioning, Politics and Pertinence
o Myfanwy James, Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Joseph Grace Kasereka, Research Triangle Institute International; Shelley Lees, Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine : ‘The Politics of a Second Vaccine Trial: Debates surrounding Ebola vaccine trials in the eastern DR Congo’

Paper presentations