Dr Armand Sprecher: interview 1 and PDF transcript

Date:
23/02/2015
Reference:
OH3/2/1
Part of:
Ebola Voices Oral Histories
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    Credit

    Dr Armand Sprecher: interview 1 and PDF transcript. In copyright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    About this work

    Description

    [00:00:50] Armand Sprecher [AS] outlines his medical background, training as an emergency physician at University of Missouri Truman Medical Centre, United States, worked with International Medical Corps in Bosnia, finished training in 1997, first mission with MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] in Sri Lanka 1997,Gulu, Uganda in 2000 during the Ebola outbreak. [00:02:40] work as isolation ward physician in Uganda in 2000.[00:03:30] Remarks he knew almost nothing about Ebola before going to Uganda, media outlook on Ebola ‘The Hot Zone’ [1994 non-fiction book]. [00:04:45] The management of the disease in 2000, earlier Ebola outbreaks. [00:08:30] What makes this [2014] Ebola outbreak different, mobility of patients, people moving about spreading disease, people moving from village to village, tells anecdotes. [00:12:00] Describes first being alerted about disease in mid-March 2014, describes colleagues and their roles. [00:18:20] Mentions work on other previous Ebola outbreaks. [00:19:30] Remarks on sustained research funding for Ebola, bioterrorism, treatment of patients, Samaritan’s Purse. [00:21:40] Tells anecdote about initial international conversations around [2014] outbreak, mentions MSF identifying Ebola first and timeline. [00:24:50] Outlines steps of how to control Ebola outbreak, co-ordination role of Ministry of Health/World Health Organisation, who has overall authority, the history of that authority. [00:27:30] Talks about who’s in charge during outbreaks, institutional barriers to correcting the previous deficiencies, government agencies, hierarchies of who’s in charge. [00:30:40] Ebola in Monrovia in July [2014], advising Liberians, helping Samaritan’s Purse who were there. [00:32:30] Aid given from international agencies, problems with body collection. [00:35:50] Importance of contact tracing, problems with funding streams and MSF. [00:40:00] Problems of Liberian Ministry of Health, problems with the Government’s decision to quarantine West Point, it’s effect on trust with the community. [00:45:00] ‘marketing’ problem of treatment units being seen by local people as where Ebola patients go to die. [00:48:00] use of Ebola treatments/vaccines, ZMapp, ethics of these. [00:51:48] Interview ends.

    Publication/Creation

    23/02/2015

    Physical description

    1 WAV file, 1 transcript 523 MB

    Copyright note

    Copyright in this interview is held by Wellcome Collection.

    Notes

    PDF transcript created by archivist for preservation and access reasons. See OH3/2/3 for original Microsoft Word format version of transcript.

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