The return of the military coup to West Africa: the African Union response

Abstract: The following research report seeks to investigate the recent occurrence of military coup d’états in the geographical sub-region of West Africa. Military coups staged in both Mauritania (August 2008) and Guinea (December 2008) represent an alarming spike in the incidence of illegal political takeovers and raise questions as to what form of response is required in order to limit, or completely eradicate, the scourge of unconstitutional changes of government (UCG) from the continent. This report suggests that the African Union (AU), in its commitment to the ideals of political legality and legitimate governance, is capable of addressing UCG in Africa through its inherent ability to induce long-term normative reformations regarding democracy and constitutionality

Organised Crime in Healthcare Systems

Crime and malpractice within healthcare systems take many forms, from front line corruption such as demanding cash payment for appointments or consultations, through to large scale misuse or misappropriation of funds in global health initiatives. Organised crime engages in activities that are directly and specifically detrimental to public health. Corruption is a serious threat to global health outcomes, leading to financial waste and adverse health consequences. Corruption and criminal exploitation are global public-health challenges. Overall, the literature emphasised corruption and malpractice in healthcare systems and did not always make clear whether criminal activity is strictly organised by groups or by individuals seizing opportunities as these present. The line between omnipresent corruption and possibly more damaging organised crime seems indistinct. Rather few studies were identified that report on the impact from organised crime groups in past pandemics or other humanitarian emergency responses.FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Modelling the Global Prevalence of COVID-19: An Econometric Approach

Nearly all economies of the world suffered from the sudden outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic emanating from Wuhan City of China to the rest of the world. A number of studies have been conducted to investigate the drivers of the spread of the viral infection. We differ from existing studies by employing a cross-sectional quantile regression approach to uncover socio-economic conditions that are instrumental in the spread of COVID-19 in Africa, Asia, America and Europe. Across the continents, we observed that life expectancy, the size of the aged population and spending on the health sector have significant impacts on the spread of COVID-19. We also noted the specific roles of out-of-pocket spending, net migration and tourism attraction for Africa, America and Europe, respectively, in driving the viral spread. We therefore draw policy implications in terms of the need for improved spending on health sector across continents and the need to intensify health checks for travelers and immigrants, and also the need to emphasize regular check-ups for all individuals across continents since current realities have shown that no age-group is spared of contracting the viral infection

An Examination of the Impact of the COVID-19 Health Threat, Stress, and Social Isolation on Lifestyle Habits as Analyzed through the Protection Motivation Theory

The COVID-19 emerged in China in 2019 and quickly spread to other countries, leading to mandated lockdowns and social isolation. This cross-sectional study examined the impact of the COVID-19-generated stress, health threat, and social isolation on dietary, physical activity, and self-care habits of adults in Florida, utilizing the PMT as a framework. Participants (n = 478) completed online surveys about demographics, perceived stress, and changes in lifestyle habits. Significant positive changes were reported in cooking at home (p \u3c .001) frequency, sweets (p \u3c .001), and breakfast (p = .009) consumption, outdoors physical activity (p = .005), self-care (p \u3c .001), relaxation (p \u3c .001), and rest (p \u3c .001) habits. Significant negative changes were reported in fast food (p = .004) and snack (p \u3c .001) consumption. A significant relationship existed between self-reported stress, perceived threat, (r = .33, p \u3c .001), and perceived efficacy, (r = -.15, p = .002). Perceived threat was the most important predictor of changes in dietary habits (R2 = .13); stress was the main predictor of physical activity (R2 = .60) and self-care (R2 = .18) changes. Perceived threat and stress predicted changes in dietary (ß = .255, p \u3c .001; ß = .253, p \u3c .001) and physical activity (ß = .177, p \u3c .001; ß = .152, p \u3c .001) scores, and both with perceived efficacy predicted changes in self-care (ß = .184, p \u3c .001, ß = .375, p \u3c .001, ß = .098, p \u3c .05) scores. Protection-motivation seems to influence behavior change in times of distress and may support effective interventions to promote lifestyle changes. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of COVID-19 generated stress, health threat, and social isolation on lifestyle habits of adults in Florida utilizing PMT constructs

Microbial Geopolitics: Living with Danger and the Future of Security.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, WE’LL ALL BE DEAD: The failures of history and institutions regarding the 2013-2015 West African Ebola Pandemic.

Abstract The 2013 – 2015 Ebola pandemic had a devastating impact on the countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, with a few regional and global sparks as a result of the 25,178 cases and 10,445 deaths that the epidemic has so far brought upon the three most affected nations by April First 2015. The epidemic has collapsed healthcare systems, economies, and the very social fabric of life within the subregion itself. In the light of this tragic epidemic, one question stands out above all, “How and why did this happen?” The medical literature around Ebola is sound and due to this current epidemic vast and greatly updated. However the story of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea and why they were so susceptible to the epidemic has not been reflected upon in modern academic literature. This paper will review the historical, institutional, geographic, and environmental factors that led towards the Ebola virus finding these three countries a near- perfect breeding ground as well as the consequences that this epidemic has for future outbreaks and the lessons it serves for public health policy

Epidemic orientalism: social construction and the global management of infectious disease

This dissertation examines how certain epidemic outbreaks become "global threats", that is, diseases that become the focus of international regulations and organized responses while others do not. To answer this question, this dissertation draws upon archival data collected at the World Health Organization (WHO) archives in Geneva, the Western Cape Archives in Cape Town, the British Library, British National Archives, the Wellcome Library Archives in London, and twelve qualitative interviews with senior global health actors in order to analyze five cases when disease threats were prioritized internationally as well as how these constructions patterned responses to outbreaks. I begin by exploring the formation of the first international disease controls in the 19th century, the International Sanitary Conventions, created to prevent the spread of three diseases- plague, cholera and yellow fever. I probe how these earliest conventions patterned responses to diseases covered under them and limited responses to those beyond their scope. Examining how these conventions transformed, I explore why the same disease priorities were maintained by the WHO in their International Sanitary Regulations of the 1950's. Finally, I analyze the transformation of the International Health Regulations in 2005 and its effects on the assessment of disease threat. This dissertation shows that three factors structure the construction of disease threat: epidemic orientalism, economic concerns and field dynamics. Epidemic Orientalism, a discourse motivating the construction of disease threat that first emerged in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, positioned the colonized world as the space from which Europe and the Imperial powers needed to be protected. This orientalist gaze prioritizes the control of diseases emanating from colonial sites that threaten international trade and commerce and has been re-inscribed in all past and present regulations. These factors explain how and why plague, cholera and yellow fever came to be maintained as the primary diseases of international concern until the 21st century. As the WHO has recently been challenged in its authority to manage disease threats, these two factors are also mediated by the WHO's manipulation of symbolic power within a new field of infectious disease management which conditions responses to outbreaks today

More Than Death: Fear of Illness in American Literature 1775-1876

This dissertation argues that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century narratives about personal and collective experiences with disease train American readers to fear illness while warning them against the dangers of being afraid. Such narratives depict the way illness ravages the physical body, disrupts interpersonal relationships, and threatens to dismantle social or municipal organization. In other words, the story of sickness is a story of terror-inducing dis-order. I study disease with a lens informed by cultural and disability studies to show that what makes disease historically and culturally significant is its power—through the body—to dis-order relationships, society, and knowledge. Anxieties about this dis-order did not go dormant when an epidemic faded; they continued to circulate in writing, their vigor magnifying with each new outbreak. Through extensive archival research into representations of disease in ephemera, popular publications, and medical writing, my dissertation proffers a new reading of canonical works depicting sickness. Literary works gothicize disease by dramatizing its possible effects that make life unrecognizable, thus feeding fears as they portray them. My analysis shows that works like John and Abigail Adams’s letters, Abigail Abbot Bailey’s memoir, editorials from Nathaniel Parker Willis, novels like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig are as invested in the fear of illness as disease narratives by Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe that are traditionally read as gothic. While scholars may recognize the significance of disease-induced fear in any of these individual texts, they treat each example as unique whereas I show literary authors contribute to a broader cultural anxiety spawned on the pages of popular media and spread through belles-lettres. To emphasize the relationship between the circulation of information and the circulation of disease, each chapter focuses on one disease and the written or print form that participated in sharing and shaping opinions about the disease as a terrifying event: smallpox and letters, yellow fever and pamphlets, cholera and periodicals, and tuberculosis and sentimental novels

The rhetoric of reportage: The media construction of a pandemic

In disease outbreak situations, the media are considered (and relied upon) by authorities to “translate” information across disciplinary boundaries. A reporter covering the 2003 SARS outbreak observed that journalists “are often conscious of their role as participants in a human crisis” (World Health Organization). Consequently, a pandemic presents a unique rhetorical situation to journalists. As significant intermediaries in public health messaging, journalist-rhetors help frame the narrative of a disease outbreak for lay audiences and influence whether those audiences implement protective behavioral changes. While the literature implicitly acknowledges issues of motivation in the media industry as a whole, little work has yet appeared to examine strategies specific to individual acts of reportage. Through comparative analyses of media portrayals of the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak before the nature of the threat became clear, this project explores rhetorical characteristics of the coverage in order to uncover implicit assumptions guiding public understanding of a high-risk health threat. Kenneth Burke’s method of cluster analysis yields insight into the symbolic processes embedded in a rhetorical artefact, enabling an interpretation of the rhetor’s worldview. Resulting worldviews can then be examined through a dramatistic lens. Burke also described the strategic adoption of “role” as an element of symbolic action. This study found that journalists purveyed widely different, even contradictory, worldviews, each with different impacts on audiences in terms of the interpretation and appropriate response to the threat. I argue that such divergences occur due to alienation arising from individual ethos in conflict with formal constraints in the new pandemic “scene.” Responses to alienation manifested in identifiably distinct roles. Identification with a particular role in pandemic reportage was reflected in the terminology of journalists studied. Through clusters of association and dissociation, journalists classed the threat as “mild” and rejected the term “pandemic,” as a serious threat but one that could be managed, or as an apocalyptic threat against which there was no defence, with all stances occurring simultaneously in time. Ramifications for the lay public ranged from the location of protection with public health officials, invitations to engage in processes of Othering, or the amplification of the cataclysmic nature of the scene. As these stances differed in their portrayals of impacts on the lay public and thus ability to motivate behavioral change, an improved understanding of journalistic experience in the pandemic “scene” is crucial to improving communication aiming to protect the health of lay publics