The scale and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, combined with the large number of deaths it has caused, have created a toxic mix of rumour and innuendo – further complicating aid operations that already face significant obstacles in delivering vital humanitarian assistance. At a time when medical personnel have been both applauded and subjected to hostility as potential vectors of the virus, aid staff face real security risks – risks that their organisations are obliged to take seriously.

Coronavirus aujourd’hui, Ebola hier, l’épidémiologie des maladies infectieuses reste un impensé des populations et demeure peu enseignée à l’école primaire et secondaire, constate Françoise Duroch de Médecins sans frontières.

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In December 1899 Honolulu-based physicians attributed two deaths to bubonic plague, and a local paper duly announced that the ‘scourge of the Orient’ had arrived. Within months a first plague fatality was reported in continental U.S. as Chinese-American Chick Gin (Wing Chung Ging or Wong Chut King depending on the transliteration) succumbed to the disease in San Francisco. The cause of death was based on a classic plague symptom of swelling around the groin, but was disputed even after rudimentary bacterial analysis.

La menace du typhus qui sévit en Europe orientale et dans les Balkans pendant la première moitié du XXe siècle fut exploitée pour dénoncer le péril bolchevique, puis utilisée par les nazis pour séquestrer les populations juives.

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The 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was an unprecedented medical and political emergency that cast an unflattering light on multiple corners of government and international response.

The  Ebola  epidemic  continues  to  be  instructive.  This  was  indeed  the  conclusion  of  the  "Focus"  on  this subject  in  our  inaugural  issue:  the  magnitude  of  this  unprecedented  crisis,  its  failures  and  successes, required  that  there  were  lessons  to  be  learned.  This  is  what  Marc  Poncin,  the  former  coordinator  for Doct

With 28,639 cases and 11,316 deaths, the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa stunned the world, revealing the global health community’s collective shortcomings in the face of a virulent and deadly disease. It was also among the largest responses in MSF’s history with more than 5,000 staff deployed to care for patients and help contain the outbreak.

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a highly lethal condition for which no specific treatment has proven efficacy. In September 2014, while the Ebola outbreak was at its peak, the World Health Organization released a short list of drugs suitable for EVD research. Favipiravir, an antiviral developed for the treatment of severe influenza, was one of these. In late 2014, the conditions for starting a randomized Ebola trial were not fulfilled for two reasons.