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Denial has always been a part of any epidemic. Pathogens, invisible and wiggling into vulnerabilities and fault lines in society, slip by cloaked by denial.
The philosopher Foucault said of HIV/AIDS which he would die from a few years later: “This is some new piece of American Puritanism. You’ve dreamed up a disease that punishes only gays and blacks?..." https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/qa-edmund-white/
Denial also led Ebola to spread in West Africa and also at times in the DRC.
In Sierra Leone, the death of Dr Khan, a doctor fighting the Ebola and denial at once, was a wake up call that Ebola is real https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2014/08/19/tribute-two-ebola-heroes
In Sierra Leone, the death of Dr Khan, a doctor fighting the Ebola and denial at once, was a wake up call that Ebola is real https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2014/08/19/tribute-two-ebola-heroes
Denial can also reflect a concern the disease is being used to manipulate others, for money or power. Denial and mistrust facilitated the spread of Ebola in the DRC, where political divisions were already prominent https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6762146/ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jun/25/most-complex-health-crisis-congo-struggles-ebola-drc
Denial affects any diagnosis, particularly those we don't want to accept, those that may kill us or change our lives forever. This is true for cancer, but this is particularly true for infectious diseases https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1122912/
An infectious disease can divert a life course in a moment. The stigma infections create have been profound. An attempt to avoid of disease has triggered shunning millennia ago, in the days of leprosy (not even that infectious), and through to our current era
It is that our response to deny and shun is often the opposite of what we need to do to effectively fight a disease. It gives a thoughtless virus the upper hand over us.
