Writing today in the journal Lancet Global Health, researchers from Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology examine the links between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

According to the authors, joined by colleagues from Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, IMF programs over the years have imposed heavy constraints on the development of effective health systems of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – the cradle of the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 6,800 since March this year.

The researchers say that economic policy reforms advocated by the IMF have undermined the capacity of health systems in these three nations – systems already fragile from legacies of conflict and state failure – to cope with infectious disease outbreaks and other such emergencies. – See more here.

A long reading list on Ebola, which I updated regularly between October and November 2014, is available on this site.