Ebola virus disease: are you up to date?

On 17 July 2019, an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organization (France 24, 2019a; [WHO], 2019a; BBC News, 2019). Four years ago, another PHEIC was declared in relation to an Ebola outbreak spread across Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea (WHO, 2019b). This eventually became the largest Ebola outbreak in history. There were only a handful of patients with Ebola cared for by the NHS, but the media interest was high and public anxiety widespread. The fear of infection led to much time and effort being put into developing a multi-agency framework to prevent and control any potential risk of spread.

Why the need for an article about Ebola virus disease now? During the last Ebola outbreak, a plethora of guidance, policies and protocols were developed to prepare the NHS for potential cases either travelling to, or occurring in, the UK. However, it is now 4 years since the outbreak in West Africa was declared over—how many organisations have looked at their policies and procedures since then? Would any staff in a GP practice remember where the personal protective equipment (PPE) is held and remember what to wear in what circumstance? Has anyone checked expiry dates of stock recently? Does everyone know who to call or what to do in the event of a suspected case presenting at the general practice premises? While the UK has declared that ‘this outbreak presents a negligible to very low risk to the UK public’ (PHE, 2019a), it is an opportune time to review response arrangements.