Interventions to Control the Current Ebola Outbreak: Are They Working?

The current approach — including isolation, contact tracing, and vaccination — should control the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Ebola outbreak that started in 2014 in west Africa and ultimately claimed more than 11,000 lives generated global condemnation of the slow and initially inadequate response. Is the world now better equipped to respond? To find out, investigators conducted an early epidemiological assessment of a current outbreak that shares epidemiological features with the earlier one.

On May 8, 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported an Ebola outbreak after samples from patients with fever and hemorrhage from the northwest were confirmed positive for Zaire ebolavirus. Cases were found in three locations (two of them remote) and included sites with proximity to urban centers and connections to Kinshasa and regional borders.

The epidemiology t…

Reviewing Author

Mary E. Wilson, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardOneHealthTrust (formerly Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy); Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin

RoyaltiesUpToDate

Editorial BoardsJournal of Travel Medicine

Mary E. Wilson, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardOneHealthTrust (formerly Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy); Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin

RoyaltiesUpToDate

Editorial BoardsJournal of Travel Medicine

Interventions to Control the Current Ebola Outbreak: Are They Working?

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Reviewing Author