TY - JOUR T1 - The syndemic of COVID-19 and gender-based violence in humanitarian settings: leveraging lessons from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-004194 VL - 5 IS - 11 SP - e004194 AU - Lindsay Stark AU - Melissa Meinhart AU - Luissa Vahedi AU - Simone E Carter AU - Elisabeth Roesch AU - Isabel Scott Moncrieff AU - Philomene Mwanze Palaku AU - Flore Rossi AU - Catherine Poulton Y1 - 2020/11/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/5/11/e004194.abstract N2 - Summary boxEfforts to situate gender-based violence (GBV) within the COVID-19 pandemic remain inadequate. Based on the knowledge that the public health crises of violence and infectious disease are intersecting, we use a syndemic perspective to examine their shared influence in humanitarian settings.When the humanitarian community exclusively prioritises the lives saved from infectious diseases, such as Ebola and COVID-19, the lives impacted by interrelated factors, such as GBV, can be overlooked.This narrative leverages learnings from the 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to inform and strengthen ongoing responses related to GBV and COVID-19 within humanitarian settings.For both Ebola and COVID-19, response efforts have overlooked the life-saving nature of GBV services. These services, including one-stop crisis centres and safe spaces, are vulnerable to cessation when health service providers attempt to prevent and control the spread of infectious disease without incorporating a gender-sensitive lens.A critical opportunity to integrate women within response planning is through local women’s organisations which are already embedded in local communities.As the gendered dimensions of COVID-19 are increasingly recognised, efforts to situate gender-based violence (GBV) within the pandemic remain inadequate. It is critical to first acknowledge that the drivers and impacts of COVID-19 and GBV do not occur in isolation; rather, they present as a syndemic—each is made more destructive by the presence of the other.1 Thus, it is not the infection of COVID-19 that increases the risk of GBV but rather the gender-insensitive systems and policies that magnify the risk.2Based on the knowledge that the public health crises of violence and infectious disease are intersecting, we use a syndemic perspective to examine their shared influence in humanitarian settings. This brief leverages learnings from the 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to inform … ER -