Massive global response needed to tackle Ebola

Writing in an editorial published in Science, experts said that the current Ebola outbreak requires “rapid response at a massive global scale.”

Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Peter Piot, MD, PhD, who co-discovered the Ebola virus, said that the epidemic is the result of a “perfect storm” including dysfunctional health services, low trust in government and Western medicine, denial that the virus exists and unhygienic burial practices.

“The fast pace of Ebola’s spread is a grim reminder that epidemics are a global threat and that the only way to get this virus under control is through a rapid response at the massive global scale — much stronger than the current efforts,” Piot wrote.

Piot said that international assistance must include support for disease-control activities such as providing personal protective equipment, patient care, and addressing the health, nutritional and other needs of the population in quarantine. He also said it is the opportune time to accelerate research for experimental therapies and vaccines.

In a second article, published in Eurosurveillance, Piot and colleague Adam Kucharski, PhD, research fellow in infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine warn that the significant growth in case numbers makes tracing and surveillance for Ebola increasingly difficult, and the cases could double in a fortnight if the situation does not change.

“Fear and mistrust in health authorities has contributed to this problem, but increasingly, it is also because isolation centers have reached capacity,” Piot and Kucharski wrote. “As well as creating potential for further transmission, large numbers of untreated — and therefore unreported — cases make it difficult to measure the true spread of infection, and hence to plan and allocate resources.”

They also said that patients without Ebola are also affected by this outbreak, especially in cities like Monrovia, Liberia, where many health facilities have closed because of the infection. As a result, other untreated injuries and illnesses may have caused additional loss of lives.

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Disclosure: Kucharski and Piot report no relevant disclosures.