1887

Abstract

The current Ebolavirus disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa has now been running for >1 year and has been an international health emergency for >6 months. As the weekly number of new cases falls, the World Health Organization is preparing its response to the final stages of the epidemic. The final totals will exceed 20 000 cases and 8000 deaths. An ability to adapt disease countermeasures including laboratory support to the changing epidemiology of EVD has become a matter of urgency. This article considers the planning, development and modification of a flexible microbiology laboratory response, and describes logistic and operational considerations for clinical and public health microbiologists.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000063
2015-06-01
2024-04-20
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jmm/64/6/587.html?itemId=/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000063&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2014; Ebola crisis: Australian doctor at frontline of outbreak says time is running out to contain disease. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-13/australian-doctor-says-time-running-out-to-contain-ebola/5741858
  2. BBC News 2014; Ebola outbreak: Guinea health team killed. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29256443
  3. Centers for Disease Control 2014; Ebola diagnosis. http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/diagnosis/
  4. Director-General, World Health Organization 2014; WHO Director-General addresses high-level meeting on the Ebola response. http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2014/un-meeting-ebola/en/
  5. Dixon M. G., Schafer I. J., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2014; Ebola viral disease outbreak – West Africa, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 63:548–551[PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Forrester J. D., Hunter J. C., Pillai S. K., Arwady M. A., Ayscue P., Matanock A., Monroe B., Schafer I. J., Nyenswah T. G., De Cock K. M., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2014; Cluster of Ebola cases among Liberian and U.S. health care workers in an Ebola treatment unit and adjacent hospital – Liberia, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 63:925–929[PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Gire S. K., Goba A., Andersen K. G., Sealfon R. S. G., Park D. J., Kanneh L., Jalloh S., Momoh M., Fullah M., other authors. 2014; Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak. Science 345:1369–1372 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Grolla A., Jones S., Kobinger G., Sprecher A., Girard G., Yao M., Roth C., Artsob H., Feldmann H., Strong J. E. 2012; Flexibility of mobile laboratory unit in support of patient management during the 2007 Ebola-Zaire outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zoonoses Public Health 59:Suppl 2151–157 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Inglis T. J. 2007; Principia aetiologica: taking causality beyond Koch's postulates. J Med Microbiol 56:1419–1422 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Inglis T. J. 2013; The lab without walls: a deployable approach to tropical infectious diseases. Am J Trop Med Hyg 88:614–618 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Inglis T. 2014; Developed nations must not fear sending Ebola help. Nature 514:537 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Inglis T. J. J., Merritt A., Jayasinghe I., Montgomery J., Thevanesam V. 2008; Logistic aspects of a deployable molecular microbiology laboratory. J Mil Vet Health 17:6–10
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Inglis T. J., Merritt A. J., Levy A., Vietheer P., Bradbury R., Scholler A., Chidlow G., Smith D. W. 2011; Deployable laboratory response to influenza pandemic; PCR assay field trials and comparison with reference methods. PLoS One 6:e25526 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Inglis T., Merritt A., Nicholson J., Neville P., Lindsay M. 2013; Lab Without Walls mobile polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection capability for Australian arboviruses. https://molecularhub. org/resources/543 .
  15. Kelly J. D. 2014; Make diagnostic centres a priority for Ebola crisis. Nature 513:145 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  16. National Institute of Communicable Diseases 2014; Deployment of field laboratory to West Africa. http://www.nicd.ac.za/?page = news&id = 4&rid = 382
  17. Nyenswah T. G., Westercamp M., Ashraf Kamali A., Qin J., Zielinski-Gutierrez E., Amegashie F., Fallah M., Gergonne B., Nugba-Ballah R., other authors. 2014; Evidence for declining numbers of Ebola cases – Montserrado County, Liberia, June–October 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 63:1072–1076[PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Rid A., Emanuel E. J. 2014; Why should high-income countries help combat Ebola?. JAMA 312:1297–1298 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Schoepp R. J., Rossi C. A., Khan S. H., Goba A., Fair J. N. 2014; Undiagnosed acute viral febrile illnesses, Sierra Leone. Emerg Infect Dis 20:1176–1182 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Walker D. L. 2010; Refining the Military Appreciation Process for adaptive campaigning. Aust Army J 8:85–98
    [Google Scholar]
  21. WHO Ebola Response Team 2014; Ebola virus disease in West Africa – the first 9 months of the epidemic and forward projections. N Engl J Med 371:1481–1495 [View Article][PubMed]
    [Google Scholar]
  22. World Health Organization 2014a; Situation report. http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/?m = 20150121
  23. World Health Organization 2014b; Ebola response. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/ebola-response/en/
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000063
Loading
/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000063
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error