Because of the urgent need to raise public awareness about the on-going outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa, I created a special archive of Ebola materials for my undergraduate class, “Global History of Health.” I assembled these materials using the commercial software “Blackboard” that my university supplies us for creating password-protected course content. To share information on these materials and resources more widely, I have posted on my Academia.edu page screen captures of all the folders: https://asu.academia.edu/MonicaHGreen/Global-Health—Teaching-Documents. These PDF files do not, however, have live links to the Internet. I am taking steps to convert the folders to an Internet-accessible form, but that may take some time.
I’ve divided the material into 4 main folders: (1) news/information outlets that are well worth bookmarking in order to stay up on the latest news; (2) a folder of news items I’ve been collecting over the past several
months; (3) some items from around the time of the initial discovery of Ebola in 1976 (the films in particular may be helpful, if your library owns them); and (4) some of the key pieces reflecting current scientific knowledge of the disease (genetics, epidemiology, clinical course of the disease, etc.).
To stress, I am not trying to cover all aspects of the disease (e.g., drug or vaccine discovery). From my global health perspective, I am trying to assess the deeper roots of this disease: what larger environmental (including human) factors have contributed to the disease’s emergence overall, and what have led to this particular outbreak. This is just one of many resources available for gathering and disseminating information on this tragic situation. Please let your students know about these resources.
Monica H. Green, Professor of History, Arizona State University, Monica.green@asu.edu
Global History of Health-Teaching Notes on Ebola by Monica H. Green