Attachments
Executive summary The epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa poses a considerable risk of introduction of Ebola virus into currently unaffected countries. The EVD outbreak has been declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR). Unaffected countries with land borders adjoining those of countries with current Ebola virus transmission have been advised by the IHR Emergency Committee to establish surveillance and alert systems for clusters of unexplained fever or deaths due to febrile illness, establish access to a qualified diagnostic laboratory for EVD, ensure that basic infection prevention and control measures are in place in health care facilities, ensure that health care workers are trained in appropriate procedures for infection prevention and control and establish rapid response teams to investigate and manage EVD patients and their contacts.
WHO and partners are accelerating activities to support currently unaffected countries by strengthening their preparedness for introduction of EVD, to ensure immediate outbreak response capacity. The countries concerned are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic,
Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali,
Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. The activities include a preparedness checklist of the key components and tasks of an Ebola response and deployment of international “preparedness strengthening teams” to high-priority unaffected countries to facilitate use of the checklist and to help them plan and build their preparedness. The preparedness strengthening teams are formed in partnership with both national and international organizations.
The team deployed to the Gambia focused on assisting the country to be as operationally prepared as possible to effectively and safely detect, isolate, investigate and report potential EVD cases and to mount an effective response to prevent a larger outbreak. To accomplish this goal, the team conducted “scoping” activities, stakeholder meetings, site visits and a table-top simulation exercise to determine the systems in place and the areas of preparedness that could be strengthened.
The Gambia has an established mechanism for managing disasters and emergencies in its National Disaster Management Agency. The Agency established a health emergency preparedness and response plan in 2011 and a national EVD preparedness and response plan in April 2014. The plan focuses on health service response and includes strategic objectives, key activities and a budget. It is structured into five thematic areas: coordination, epidemiology and laboratory surveillance, case management, communications and social mobilization and logistics and safety. The five subcommittees responsible for these areas, which meet weekly, have already completed much work in preparing for the introduction of Ebola virus into the Gambia.
The Gambia country visit resulted in identification of both strengths and opportunities for improvement in all 10 key response components identified by WHO. Of the opportunities for improvement, four were considered critical and should be fully operationalized to permit an immediate response in the case of an EVD event:
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Ensure fully functional, equipped isolation facilities.
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Clarify the structure and composition of and the equipment required for rapid response teams.
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Identify a contact-tracing data management system, and train and provide resources for the necessary personnel.
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Clarify the relations between the national EVD plan and the response plan of the National Disaster Management Agency with respect to reporting and coordination.