In late 2013, an Ebola outbreak began in rural Guinea before quickly spreading to the neighboring countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia. By the time the epidemic ended in 2016, some two and a half years after the initial case, there had been over 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths across seven countries.
Improving public health infrastructure and surveillance systems quickly emerged as priorities following the epidemic to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. In the first global health security seminar of the 2018 academic calendar, Alpha Barry, Erin Sorrell, and Aurelia Attal-Juncqua—members and collaborators of the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security—presented on their experiences working as implementers for the U.S. CDC on a large public health capacity-building project in Guinea following the 2014 Ebola epidemic.
This event was part of the Global Health Security Seminar Series, co-sponsored by Georgetown’s Center for Global Health Science and Security and the Global Health Initiative. Now in its second year, series speakers addressed critical issues in global health in an effort to promote greater dialogue regarding pandemic preparedness across the university and the wider Washington, D.C., community.
Featured
Alpha Barry, M.D., Dr.PH., MPH
Alpha Barry is a highly-experienced Guinean health professional with an extensive background managing public health programs and community health interventions. Barry has held numerous positions on USAID-funded projects that have worked to improve the access to and quality of health services, and is skilled in RH/FP and HIV/AIDS interventions, maternal and child health, immunization programs, monitoring and evaluation, the use of mass media for behavior change, and community mobilization.
Erin Sorrell, Ph.D.
Erin Sorrell is a member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security as well as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. She works with partners across the U.S. government, international organizations, and ministries around the world to identify elements required to support health systems strengthening and laboratory capacity building for disease detection, reporting, risk assessment, and response.
Claire Standley, Ph.D.
Claire Standley is an assistant research professor within the Center for Global Health Science and Security. Her research focuses on the analysis of health systems strengthening and international capacity building for public health, with an emphasis on prevention and control of infectious diseases in both humans and animals, as well as public health emergency preparedness and response. Standley has extensive experience supporting programs for laboratory capacity building, disease surveillance, and cooperative research across the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Lower Mekong.
Aurelia Attal-Juncqua, M.S.
Aurelia Attal-Juncqua is a senior research associate at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security. Aurelia has prior experiences working as a pharmaceutical researcher, as well as for the World Health Organization as a part of their Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department.
