Santos Neto RJ, Ventura DFL. Negligence and global health: the case of the 2018 ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Interface (Botucatu). 2026; 30: e250376 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.250376
Abstract
The article seeks to understand why the Ebola outbreak that originated in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 2018, was not considered a threat to international peace and security by the United Nations Security Council—unlike the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The transformation of a health problem into a security issue (securitization) is not inherently good or bad; it can bring benefits such as increased human and financial resources for the response. From the perspective of critical security studies and global health and based on a literature review and document analysis to characterize a case, the article concludes that the “non-securitization” of the studied Ebola outbreak occurred mainly because it remained confined to Africa. This constitutes an example of the international community’s systematic neglect of health in the region.
Keywords
Health security; Ebola; Neglect; Democratic Republic of Congo; Vaccines
Access in: https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.250376
