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The Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa in 2014 dominated the headlines for months, outpacing coverage of other health emergencies. It was a critically important crisis, and many lessons were learned during the response phase, with much work to do. But if we focus too much on any one disease, we risk overlooking the less dramatic but more common outbreaks of measles, malaria, cholera, and meningitis, which occur every year with devastating consequences and loss of life. In fact, as we publish this report, a measles outbreak is raging in Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with extremely high mortality rates.
We must look at outbreaks holistically – including but not limited to Ebola – to truly understand where MSF and other emergency medical organizations can improve our response and gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. As our report, Epidemics: Neglected Emergencies, shows, current outbreak response strategies are largely incoherent and must change in some very important ways.
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