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. 2018 Jul 27;14(1):75.
doi: 10.1186/s12992-018-0396-z.

Managing emerging transnational public health security threats: lessons learned from the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak

Aaron M Wendelboe  1 , Micah McCumber  2 , Julie Erb-Alvarez  3   4 , Nicholas Mould  5 , Richard W Childs  6 , James L Regens  5
Affiliations

Managing emerging transnational public health security threats: lessons learned from the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak

Aaron M Wendelboe et al. Global Health. .

Abstract

Background: Pandemics pose significant security/stability risks to nations with fragile infrastructures. We evaluated characteristics of the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak to elucidate lessons learned for managing transnational public health security threats.

Methods: We used publically available data to compare demographic and outbreak-specific data for Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, including key indicator data by the World Health Organization. Pearson correlation statistics were calculated to compare country-level infrastructure characteristics with outbreak size and duration.

Results: Hospital bed density was inversely correlated with longer EVD outbreak duration (r = - 0.99). Country-specific funding amount allocations were more likely associated with number of incident cases than the population at-risk or infrastructure needs. Key indicators demonstrating challenges for Guinea included: number of unsafe burials, percent of EVD-positive samples, and days between symptom onset and case hospitalization. Sierra Leone's primary key indicator was the number of districts with ≥1 security incident. Liberia controlled their outbreak before much of the key-indicator data were collected.

Conclusion: Many of the country-level factors, particularly the WHO key indicators were associated with controlling the epidemic. The infrastructure of countries affected by communicable diseases should be assessed by international political and public health leaders.

Keywords: Ebola virus disease; Outbreak investigation; Pandemic; Public health; Response.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable. We did not seek approval from an ethics board/institutional review board because the data were from publically available sources.

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Epidemic Curve of Ebola Cases in West Africa. Reprinted with permission from CDC, cdc.gov/about/ebola/timeline.html
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Case fatality among affected countries as of March 30, 2016
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Indicator data from WHO Ebola Situation Report
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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