Response to the Ebola epidemics in Guinea: Public Health Organisational issues and possible solutions

Abstract

Because of its magnitude and changing dynamics, the Ebola epidemics currently affecting some West African countries constitutes one of the most serious public health problems in recent decades. Conceptualised as a case study with two levels of analysis, this article aims at analysing the response to the Ebola epidemics in Guinea in order to ultimately highlight the public health organisational issues related to this response and to propose some possible solutions to improve the efficiency of this response. This article is based on documentary analysis, observation and a three month participating immersion conducted in Guinea from June 2014 to August 2014. Using certain elements of Parsons’ social action theory, this study has shown the existence of 4 systems of social intervention in the organisation and management of the response to the Ebola epidemics in Guinea. They are the WHO, MSF, the Red Cross and the Ministry of Health. Each of these systems of social intervention has specific characteristics and specificities and interacts actively at several levels of the healthsystem of Guinea. Having completed the analysis of the interventions undertaken by these 4 systems of social action, and using the conceptual basis of the complexity theory, we propose some avenues for reflection and action for improving the quality of the response to the Ebola epidemics in Guinea, in order to finally restrain and stop its propagation in other African countries and other continents.