BACKGROUND Future infectious disease epidemics are likely to disproportionately affect countries with weak health systems, exacerbating global vulnerability. To decrease the severity of epidemics in these settings, lessons can be drawn from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. There is a dearth of literature on public perceptions of the public health response system that required citizens to repo...

Little is known about potentially modifiable factors in Ebola virus disease in children. We undertook a retrospective cohort study of children <13 years old admitted to 11 Ebola holding units in the Western Area, Sierra Leone, during 2014-2015 to identify factors affecting outcome. Primary outcome was death or discharge after transfer to Ebola treatment centers. All 309 Ebola virus-positive chi...

www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 16 September 2016 989 5 WHO. Interim guidance: clinical care for survivors of Ebola virus disease, 11 April 2016. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204235/1/WHO_ EVD_OHE_PED_16.1_eng.pdf (accessed April 29, 2016). 6 WHO. Emergency response to Ebola fl are underway in Liberia. Case investigation widens to Guinea. 2016. http://who.int/csr/disease/ ebola/libe...

Ebola viruses are the causative agents of a severe form of viral haemorrhagic fever in man, designated Ebola haemorrhagic fever, and are endemic in regions of central Africa. The exception is the species Reston Ebola virus, which has not been associated with human disease and is found in the Philippines. Ebola virus constitutes an important local public health threat in Africa, with a worldwide...

Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) was first reported in 1976 with two concurrent outbreaks of acute viral hemorrhagic fever centered in Yambuku (near the Ebola river), Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Nzara, Sudan. The current outbreak of the Ebola virus was started by reporting the first case in March 2014 in the forest regions of southeastern Guinea. Due to infection rates raising over 13,000...

In late October 2014, Ebola virus disease (Ebola) was diagnosed in a humanitarian aid worker who recently returned from West Africa to New York City (NYC). The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) actively monitored three close contacts of the patient and 114 health care personnel. No secondary cases of Ebola were detected. In collaboration with local and state partners, DOHMH ha...

BACKGROUND In the current Ebola epidemic in Western Africa, many healthcare workers have become infected. Some of these have been medically evacuated to hospitals in Europe and the USA. These clinical experiences provide unique insights into the course of Ebola virus disease under optimized condition within high level isolation units. CASE PRESENTATION A 50-year-old Caucasian male physician c...

BACKGROUND Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is not new to the world. However, the West African EVD epidemic which started in 2014 evolved into the largest, most severe and most complex outbreak in the history of the disease. The three most-affected countries faced enormous challenges in stopping the transmission and providing care for all patients. Although Ghana had not recorded any confirmed Ebola c...

Thousands of persons have survived Ebola virus disease. Almost all survivors describe symptoms that persist or develop after hospital discharge. A cross-sectional survey of the symptoms of all survivors from the Ebola treatment unit (ETU) at 34th Regimental Military Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone (MH34), was conducted after discharge at their initial follow-up appointment within 3 weeks after...

Evidence to inform decontamination practices at Ebola holding units (EHUs) and treatment centres is lacking. We conducted an audit of decontamination procedures inside Connaught Hospital EHU in Freetown, Sierra Leone, by assessing environmental swab specimens for evidence of contamination with Ebola virus by RT-PCR. Swabs were collected following discharge of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) patients ...