Awah Paschal Kum, Boock Alphonse Um, Kum Kaiseuh Awah
Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, University of Yaounde I, PO Box 755, Yaounde, Cameroon; Center for Population Studies and Health Promotion, PO Box 7535, Yaounde-Cameroon.
Regional Representative, Fairmed Foundation, Africa, Yaounde, Cameroon.
Pan Afr Med J. 2015 Oct 11;22 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):18. doi: 10.11694/pamj.supp.2015.22.1.6652. eCollection 2015.
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) started as a minor infection in Uganda in 1974 and has been frequent in Central Africa Region for the past 40 years. For over 40 years, Ebola was treated as an African disease, called a fever and known by other names where occurrences have been frequent. EVD has become a global public health threat following the most recent outbreak in West Africa. By December 31, 2014, Ebola has infected more than 23,500 people in West Africa and killed over 9,500, nearly all in the three worst-affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is transmitted through blood, vomit, diarrhea and other bodily fluids but cultural attributes associate its etiology to man-made and supernatural causes, hence stemming public health approaches to contain EVD difficult. Distrust and conflict between two healing systems are rife necessitating an African Model of EVD care and prevention. The African model remains indispensable to understand EVD and developing appropriate EVD containing approaches.
埃博拉病毒病（EVD）于1974年在乌干达以一种轻微感染的形式出现，在过去40年里在中非地区频繁发生。40多年来，埃博拉一直被视为一种非洲疾病，被称为热病，在疫情频繁发生的其他地方还有其他名称。在西非最近一次疫情爆发后，埃博拉病毒病已成为全球公共卫生威胁。截至2014年12月31日，埃博拉病毒在西非已感染超过23500人，造成9500多人死亡，几乎全部发生在受影响最严重的三个国家——几内亚、利比里亚和塞拉利昂。它通过血液、呕吐物、腹泻物和其他体液传播，但文化属性将其病因与人为和超自然原因联系起来，因此阻碍了控制埃博拉病毒病的公共卫生措施。两种治疗体系之间的不信任和冲突普遍存在，因此需要一种非洲模式的埃博拉病毒病护理和预防方法。非洲模式对于理解埃博拉病毒病以及制定适当的控制埃博拉病毒病的方法仍然不可或缺。
