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Accepted Paper:
COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness: local and global concepts and practices in tackling disease threats in Africa
Melissa Leach
(Institute of Development Studies)
Hayley MacGregor
(Institute of Development Studies)
Melissa Parker
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Annie Wilkinson
(Institute of Development Studies)
Grace Akello
(Gulu University)
Alice Desclaux
(IRD (INSERM, Univ. Montpellier), CRCF)
Fred Martineau
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Lawrence Sao Babawo
(Njala University)
Paul Richards
(Njala University, Sierra Leone)
Paper long abstract:
In recent years the concept of epidemic ‘preparedness’ has gained prominence in global health discourse as concern about (re)emerging diseases with pandemic potential has grown. The resultant sets of mechanisms and institutions oriented towards reducing risk have been analysed as forms of ‘anticipatory imagination’ (Lakoff 2017). As SARS-CoV-2 has emerged as the ‘Disease X’ of the WHO list of priority pathogens, so the unfolding of the pandemic has thrown a political spotlight on ‘preparedness’ and called into question the value of standardised approaches and linear phases of preparedness, response and recovery.
We will draw on findings from a current Wellcome grant on pandemic preparedness to reflect on the shifting and contextual nature of practices aimed at controlling disease outbreaks. This research aims to fill a gap in understandings of the connections and/or disconnections between discourses of preparedness in global fora and local concepts of and responses to outbreaks and misfortune. Fieldwork in two rural villages that have encountered Ebola in Sierra Leone and Uganda respectively, has focused on people’s responses to uncertainty in the form of ongoing threats to health and life in order to explore what views and practices on preparing might exist. Fieldwork has revealed the evolution of understandings of COVID-19, tracking how public health measures and messaging have been received and experienced and the social responses and relations that are mobilised to protect both health and livelihoods. In the national contexts, past experiences of outbreaks and international interventions as well as political agendas have shaped planning and implementation of measures. We argue that ethnographic insights are critical for a more nuanced understanding of the immediate effects and broader repercussions of epidemics and that debates about preparedness and response should consider such perspectives ‘from below’ in order to interrogate who is being prepared for what, and by whom.
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Accepted Paper:
Paper long abstract:
In recent years the concept of epidemic ‘preparedness’ has gained prominence in global health discourse as concern about (re)emerging diseases with pandemic potential has grown. The resultant sets of mechanisms and institutions oriented towards reducing risk have been analysed as forms of ‘anticipatory imagination’ (Lakoff 2017). As SARS-CoV-2 has emerged as the ‘Disease X’ of the WHO list of priority pathogens, so the unfolding of the pandemic has thrown a political spotlight on ‘preparedness’ and called into question the value of standardised approaches and linear phases of preparedness, response and recovery.
We will draw on findings from a current Wellcome grant on pandemic preparedness to reflect on the shifting and contextual nature of practices aimed at controlling disease outbreaks. This research aims to fill a gap in understandings of the connections and/or disconnections between discourses of preparedness in global fora and local concepts of and responses to outbreaks and misfortune. Fieldwork in two rural villages that have encountered Ebola in Sierra Leone and Uganda respectively, has focused on people’s responses to uncertainty in the form of ongoing threats to health and life in order to explore what views and practices on preparing might exist. Fieldwork has revealed the evolution of understandings of COVID-19, tracking how public health measures and messaging have been received and experienced and the social responses and relations that are mobilised to protect both health and livelihoods. In the national contexts, past experiences of outbreaks and international interventions as well as political agendas have shaped planning and implementation of measures. We argue that ethnographic insights are critical for a more nuanced understanding of the immediate effects and broader repercussions of epidemics and that debates about preparedness and response should consider such perspectives ‘from below’ in order to interrogate who is being prepared for what, and by whom.
Co-authors: Daniel Osinde, Moses Baluku, Esther Mokuwa, Foday Komara, Khoudia Sow
On being prepared
Session 1 Thursday 27 August, 2020, -