Elmahdawy Mahmoud, Elsisi Gihan H, Carapinha Joao, Lamorde Mohamed, Habib Abdulrazaq, Agyie-Baffour Peter, Soualmi Redouane, Ragab Samah, Udezi Anthony W, Usifoh Cyril, Usifoh Stella
ISPOR Africa Network, Cairo, Egypt.
Pharmacoeconomic Unit, Central Administration for Pharmaceutical Affairs, Cairo, Egypt.
Value Health Reg Issues. 2017 Sep;13:67-70. doi: 10.1016/j.vhri.2017.08.003. Epub 2017 Sep 13.
The Ebola virus has spread across several Western Africa countries, adding a significant financial burden to their health systems and economies. In this article the experience with Ebola is reviewed, and economic challenges and policy recommendations are discussed to help curb the impact of other diseases in the future. The West African Ebola virus disease epidemic started in resource-constrained settings and caused thousands of fatalities during the last epidemic. Nevertheless, given population mobility, international travel, and an increasingly globalized economy, it has the potential to re-occur and evolve into a global pandemic. Struggling health systems in West African countries hinder the ability to reduce the causes and effects of the Ebola epidemic. The lessons learned include the need for strengthening health systems, mainly primary care systems, expedited access to treatments and vaccines to treat the Ebola virus disease, guidance on safety, efficacy, and regulatory standards for such treatments, and ensuring that research and development efforts are directed toward existing needs. Other lessons include adopting policies that allow for better flow of relief, averting the adverse impact of strong quarantine policy that includes exaggerating the aversion behavior by alarming trade and business partners providing financial support to strengthen growth in the affected fragile economies by the Ebola outbreak. Curbing the impact of future Ebola epidemics, or comparable diseases, requires increased long-term investments in health system strengthening, better collaboration between different international organizations, more funding for research and development efforts aimed at developing vaccines and treatments, and tools to detect, treat, and prevent future epidemics.
埃博拉病毒已在西非多个国家传播，给这些国家的卫生系统和经济带来了巨大的财政负担。本文回顾了应对埃博拉的经验，并讨论了经济挑战和政策建议，以帮助遏制未来其他疾病的影响。西非埃博拉病毒病疫情始于资源匮乏地区，在上次疫情期间造成了数千人死亡。然而，鉴于人口流动、国际旅行和日益全球化的经济，疫情有可能再次发生并演变成全球大流行。西非国家脆弱的卫生系统阻碍了减轻埃博拉疫情成因和影响的能力。吸取的教训包括需要加强卫生系统，主要是初级保健系统，加快获得治疗埃博拉病毒病的药物和疫苗，提供有关此类治疗的安全性、有效性和监管标准的指导，并确保研发工作针对现有需求。其他教训包括采取政策以促进救援物资的更好流通，避免严格检疫政策的不利影响，这种政策包括通过警告贸易和商业伙伴来夸大规避行为，而这些伙伴为受埃博拉疫情影响的脆弱经济体提供财政支持以促进增长。遏制未来埃博拉疫情或类似疾病的影响，需要增加对加强卫生系统的长期投资，不同国际组织之间更好的合作，为研发疫苗和治疗方法提供更多资金，以及用于检测、治疗和预防未来疫情的工具。
