ebola outbreak in west africa: bridging the gap between the public health authorities and the community

sir, the 2014 outbreak of ebola virus disease has beendeclared as an international public health emergencyand since inception, the disease has accounted for almost27,550 cases and 11,235 associated deaths till the endof june 2015 in the affected countries.[1] a wide rangeof factors like lack of preparedness,[2] weak public healthsystem,[3] ineffective diagnostic and case managementservices,[4] absence of an effective vaccine,[3] and minimalcommunity participation[4,5] have allowed the currentoutbreak to grow to epidemic proportions. in fact, theretrospective assessment of the outbreak indicated that thedisease could have been tackled much better, provided thepublic health authorities had not failed to build a level oftrust and involve the members of the community.[2]......