Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Paul Farmer

Abstract

First edition. In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand--Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa's chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not - and the region's health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world. -- Provided by publisher. "Public health expert Paul Farmer describes the historical origins of the 2014 Ebola epidemic"-- In 2014 a devastating virus spread through West Africa, prompting fear and panic around the world. The Ebola crisis resulted in loss of life and economic disruption on a grand scale-- and yet this outcome was by no means inevitable. Farmer experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand, and here he offers the first substantive, on-the-ground account of this fast-moving medical catastrophe. He shows how old-school racism and colonialism have morphed into present day threats to public health. -- adapted from jacket Preface: The caregiver's disease -- Part I: Ebola hits home. The twenty-fifth epidemic? -- Tough calls -- Ibrahim's second chance -- The two ordeals of Yabom -- Interlude I: Down the rabbit hole -- Part II: Fevers, feuds, and diamonds. The upper Guinea coast and the world the slaves made -- The great scramble and the rise of the Pasteurians -- A world at war: The making of a clinical desert -- Things fall apart: Civil war and its aftermath -- Interlude II: The crisis caravan -- Part III: Death and life after Ebola. How Ebola kills: An exercise in social medicine -- The silly things and the fever next time -- Epilogue: The color of COVID.