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Everyone is taken by surprise when history decides to repeats itself. Disease outbreaks can affect countries at any time, causing humans to suffer, an increase in deaths, and economic losses. The epidemic of the Ebola virus provoked fear within the hearts of many. This epidemic in West Africa shows how a disease can grow rapidly and cause huge problems because of poor healthcare systems incapable of handling the issue. The outbreak of Ebola started in Guinea in December 2013 and began to spread into neighboring countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and few cases in Nigeria. In August 2014, President Barrack Obama declared Ebola to be an international public health emergency. To understand a disease, scientists not only need to know how to understand it clinically but also how other people will perceive it. It is clear that a biomedical approach alone could not address the issue, but taking an interdisciplinary approach from different fields such as biology, mathematics, anthropology, and psychology to name a few are needed to develop successful health interventions to address the Ebola issue.
At the time of the outbreak, the healthcare systems in West Africa especially in those regions, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are extremely limited. Healthcare systems within these impoverished countries did not have the resources nor funds to respond rapidly to the outbreak. There were inadequate numbers of qualified health workers. Liberia has 0.014 physicians per 1,000 people; Sierra Leone's is 0.022 and Guinea's is 0.1 physicians per 1,000 people (Ebola timeline). Infrastructure, logistics, health information, surveillance, governance and drug supply all were unavailable. Anthropologist Paul Farmer proves a point that “In West Africa they need personal protective gear, starting with gloves. Clean needles. They need oral rehydration fluid. They need medicine.

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