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Opinion: I led the U.S. CDC response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. The new outbreak needs massive, immediate, meticulous action
By the time the world began responding to the West Africa epidemic in 2014, which killed more than 11,000 people before it ended in 2016, there were 40 to 50 suspected cases.
The current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had approximately 10 times that number by the time the response started. Three weeks in, it has spread from three health zones to 25, with new areas added almost daily. National, provincial, and local health staff are responding intensively, but fewer than half of known contacts are being traced nationwide, laboratories are backlogged, no Ebola treatment center is ready, few health workers have been trained, there’s insufficient protective equipment for health workers and few medications for patients, and burial teams have come under attack.
By the time the world began responding to the West Africa epidemic in 2014, which killed more than 11,000 people before it ended in 2016, there were 40 to 50 suspected cases.
The current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had approximately 10 times that number by the time the response started. Three weeks in, it has spread from three health zones to 25, with new areas added almost daily. National, provincial, and local health staff are responding intensively, but fewer than half of known contacts are being traced nationwide, laboratories are backlogged, no Ebola treatment center is ready, few health workers have been trained, there’s insufficient protective equipment for health workers and few medications for patients, and burial teams have come under attack.