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Checking Our Privilege: How We Talk About Global Health Crises
Danny-Joelle Twizere, MHSc candidate, BPH
In an instant, the highly anticipated placement that my classmates and I had spent nearly a year preparing for was abruptly cut short. We were students at Western University completing the Master of Health Sciences in Global Health Systems. The program is divided into three semesters: two in a classroom setting here in Canada, with the final semester in Uganda to gain first-hand experience of the global health theories and practices learned throughout the year. On May 9th we departed from Canada and we gained direct insight into how local experts navigate complex structural challenges through our visits at Mulago National Referral Hospital, Butabika Mental Health Hospital, and the Uganda National Health Laboratories. Grounded in principles of authentic partnership and humility, our discussions with local leaders at institutions such as the Joint Clinical Research Centre, Rakai Health Sciences Program, and Reach One Touch One Ministries revealed not system gaps, but remarkable institutional resilience, community-driven care models, and advanced public health innovation. Then, less than a week into our trip, everything changed. On May 15, 2026, the World Health Organization declared Ebola to be a disease outbreak in Uganda (World Health Organization, 2026).
Being in the center of an emerging global health epidemic, having studied similar global health outbreaks in class for the past year, was an intense experience - one that exposed how little physical exposure we had to the issues we thought we understood. As the initial disappointment of the abruptly shortened trip settled, this experience became a stepping-stone toward recognizing my own positionality as someone from the Global North aiming for a career in the global health sector.
In the classroom, analyzing historical outbreaks had felt academic and safe; my classmates and I drew clean, theoretical lines between Western privilege and local realities, confident we understood the power dynamics at play. But it is easy to examine a health outbreak from a distance. The moment our own safety felt compromised by proximity, that academic knowledge vanished, and my immediate instinct was to lean into the very paternalistic panic I had spent months learning to critique.
I remember sitting in a dimly lit common room at our accommodation when my phone buzzed: a WhatsApp message from my mom back in Canada, linking to a WHO report declaring the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo and Uganda a global health emergency (WHO, 2026). Throughout the day, similar notifications from panicked family members spread among my classmates, most of them fixated on regional risk and the fact that this Bundibugyo strain lacked an approved vaccine. This fear-driven response, I later realized, was itself an expression of my positionality — the privilege of a Western media diet that filtered the outbreak through crisis language, in contrast to the ways local communities in Uganda were actually responding: with calm, structured containment protocols. That contrast became hard to ignore. During our visits to local health centers earlier in the term, we had witnessed firsthand the rigorous preparation already in place — mapped sanitization stations, active community health networks, healthcare workers trained in rapid response. For local communities, this was not a chaotic emergency, but a localized health challenge being met with immediate, familiar, structured response. For us, watching from inside our bubble, fear had made it hard to engage with that reality at all.
Most of us felt physically safe and were confident in Uganda’s advanced public health response. Yet, the panicked language of the articles sent managed to infiltrate our group, instantly sparking an underlying wave of anxiety. For example, when the Public Health Agency of Canada announced border restrictions, halting visas and enforcing mandatory 21-day quarantines for travelers arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, coverage leaned into worst-case scenarios rather than explaining that the outbreak was being actively managed by local experts (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2026; Kuppalli, 2026). To be fair, managing the Bundibugyo strain without an approved vaccine did call for real precaution (Kuppalli, 2026). The critical flaw, however, was not the communication of these legitimate health risks, but rather a sensationalist media framing that chose to amplify uncertainty. For us, the media panic had real-world consequences as it altered how we interacted with our immediate environment. Every cough heard on the street or delayed bus ride was suddenly magnified. This created an invisible wall between us and the very community we came to learn from.
In my cohort, the context of the Ebola outbreak was rarely discussed in terms of Uganda’s capability to handle public health emergencies, new cases impact in accordance to the population size, and more. This highlighted a flaw to me in how international coverage of health outbreaks are discussed, because they often lean into sensationalization and panic, shadowing the critical descriptions of actionable public health plans and LMIC’s deep prior experience in outbreak management. Consequently, media coverage shapes public assumptions that portray LMICs through a lens of passive vulnerability, systematically overlooking local innovation and frontline health leadership. Recognizing LMIC preparedness in containing disease outbreaks should be discussed alongside case counts. Uganda has a highly advanced health surveillance infrastructure that has successfully managed and contained multiple complex outbreaks in the past (Mugasha et al., 2025). For example, in 2015, 2022 and 2025, Uganda successfully contained Ebola outbreaks in different regions of the country, imported from Sudan (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2026). The country's quick response protocols and contact-tracing mechanisms were commendable during those previous outbreaks and this current one. Despite bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo where the 2026 Ebola outbreak emerged, they have been able to contain the spread of the disease and currently have no active cases as of July 16, 2026 (BBC News, 2026). When we ignore these achievements, we completely misrepresent what global health is about, which is uniting all countries through recognition of their health efforts and working together to bring health equity globally. In doing so, we encourage disempowering narratives that erase mutual trust and undermine the foundation of authentic, respectful global health partnerships.
Informative unbiased reporting can challenge the fear culture that creates stigma and as global health professionals, our responsibility is to actively amplify successes in the global south. This means committing to concrete practices of prioritizing and citing primary data directly from local health ministries such as Uganda’s Ministry of Health, rather than panic-driven interpretations from Global North media outlets. By deliberately integrating local expertise into our academic and professional frameworks, we actively challenge media narratives that prioritize sensationalism over structural reality. While my trip to Uganda getting cut short was a shift in my academic plans, it served as a vital eye-opener for my own positionality and professional path. Witnessing how easily Global North media framing triggered panic among my peers and families abroad forced me to turn the mirror inward. Moving forward into my career, this realization will shape not only how I consume and share information during global crises, but how I position myself as a professional. Committing to continually unlearn paternalistic defaults, interrogate my own biases, and step back so that local expertise leads the conversation.
References
BBC News. (2026, July 16). ‘Moment of joy’ as Uganda discharges last Ebola patient. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2myxjv172o
Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research. (2015). CCGHR principles for global health research: Companion document. https://cagh-acsm.org/sites/default/files/principles-ghr-companion-doc.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026, May 29). History of Ebola outbreaks. https://www.cdc.gov/ebola/outbreaks/index.html
Chibelushi, W. (2026). France confirms first Ebola case. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9gzr9rdjlo
Kuppalli, K. (2026, June 26). ‘The Hot Zone’ led me to work with Ebola patients: Now I have mixed feelings about the book. STAT News. https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/26/the-hot-zone-richard-preston-ebola-narrative/
Mugasha, R., Kwiringira, A., Ntono, V., Nakiire, L., Ayebazibwe, I., Kyozira, C., Muruta, A. N., Kasule, J. N., Byonanebye, D. M., Nanyondo, J., Walwema, R., Kakooza, F., & Lamorde, M. (2025). Scaling up and enhancing the functionality of the electronic Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response System in Uganda, 2020–2022: Description of the journey, challenges, and lessons learned. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 11(1), e59783. https://doi.org/10.2196/59783
Naidu, T., Gingell, G., & Zaidi, Z. (2024). Decolonial framework for applying reflexivity and positionality in global health research. Global Health Promotion, 31(2), 52–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/17579759241238016
Public Health Agency of Canada. (2026, May 26). Government of Canada introduces temporary border measures in response to the Ebola disease outbreak [News release]. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2026/05/government-of-canada-introduces-temporary-border-measures-in-response-to-the-ebola-disease-outbreak.html
World Health Organization. (2026, May 16). Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda (Disease Outbreak News). https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2026-DON602
World Health Organization. (2026, May 17). Epidemic of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda determined a public health emergency of international concern. https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-disease-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-uganda-determined-a-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern