Ebola, culture, and politics: the anthropology of an emerging disease

Foreword

Preface

1. Images and first contact

What is ebola?

First contact

What is culture?

Key questions

Organization of the book

What's new

Terminology

2. Outbreak ethnography : the anthropologist's toolkit

Field conditions

The relationship between theory and methods

What did we do in the field?

3. Indigenous knowledge about epidemics : Uganda 2000-2001

Background on Ugandan outbreak

Cultural models

Issues of concern to national and international teams

Intracultural variability

Conclusions

4. Providing humanitarian care : Congo 2003

Background on Congo outbreak

First days in the field

Cultural models

Issues of concern to national and international teams

Intracultural variability

Conclusion

5. Facing death and stigmatization : healthcare workers and survivors

Nurses and other healthcare workers

Survivors

Conclusion

6. Ebola outbreaks, past and present

Yambuku, DR Congo (1976)

Kikwit, DR Congo (1995)

Yambio, Sudan (2004)

Conclusion

7. Outbreak control

Beliefs and practices within the community

Beliefs and practices from outside the community

Conclusions

8. Explaining human responses to acute high-mortality epidemics

Anthropological and historical studies of human responses to epidemics

An evolutionary biocultural model

Conclusions

9. Policy, bioterrorism, and bird flu

Policy issues

Ebola as a bioterrorist weapon and the threat of a bird flu pandemic

Reflections

Appendix A

Appendix B

References cited

Index.