Abstract
Since Ebola virus disease was identified in West Africa on March 23, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has undertaken the most intensive response in the agency's history; >3,000 staff have been involved, including >1,200 deployed to West Africa for >50,000 person workdays. Efforts have included supporting incident management systems in affected countries; mobilizing partners; and strengthening laboratory, epidemiology, contact investigation, health care infection control, communication, and border screening in West Africa, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and the United States. All efforts were undertaken as part of national and global response activities with many partner organizations. CDC was able to support community, national, and international health and public health staff to prevent an even worse event. The Ebola virus disease epidemic highlights the need to strengthen national and international systems to detect, respond to, and prevent the spread of future health threats.
Highlights
The unprecedented epidemic of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in West Africa highlights the need for stronger systems for disease surveillance, response, and prevention worldwide
At the peak of the epidemic in fall 2014, widespread transmission of Ebola virus was occurring in the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone; health care systems had become largely nonfunctional; Ebola cases or clusters occurred in other countries of Africa; and there was a real possibility that Ebola could spread widely and become endemic in some of the poorest and sickest countries of the world
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated with World Health Organization (WHO) to increase preparedness in at-risk countries by helping establish Emergency Operations Center (EOC), surveillance for hemorrhagic fever and clusters of deaths, training in contact tracing, laboratory specimen transport and testing, isolation capacity for patients suspected of having Ebola, health communication messages, and border health security
Summary
The unprecedented epidemic of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in West Africa highlights the need for stronger systems for disease surveillance, response, and prevention worldwide. CDC experts helped coordinate the laboratory section of the incident management system, supported laboratories in Liberia with the US Department of Defense (DoD) and National Institutes of Health, and operated a field laboratory in Bo, Sierra Leone, that processed >2,000 samples during a 3-week period at the height of the epidemic [14]; by mid-2015, that laboratory had processed >20,000 samples.
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