Overview
Ebola or Marburg virus disease outbreaks constitute a major public health issue in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 2 870 Marburg and Ebola cases documented between June 1967 and June 2011, 270 (9%) were health-care workers. In order to provide health-care workers in risk areas with a working tool to combat Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) or Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) effectively, the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO), the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO), WHO Headquarters and their partners have produced this document: Ebola and Marburg virus disease epidemics: Preparedness, alert, control and evaluation.
The main target audience of this document are district-level health-care workers (doctors, nurses, and paramedics), as well as intermediate- and central-level health-care workers responsible for epidemic control, and International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Points (NFPs).
The objective of this document is to describe preparedness, prevention, and control measures that have been implemented successfully during previous epidemics. These measures must be implemented during the following four phases:
Pre-epidemic preparedness; Alert (identify, investigate, evaluate risks); Outbreak response and containment operations; Post-epidemic evaluation.
