A Call to Action to Enhance Filovirus Disease Outbreak Preparedness and Response

Abstract

The frequency and magnitude of recognized and declared filovirus-disease outbreaks have increased in recent years, while pathogenic filoviruses are potentially ubiquitous throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, the efficiency and effectiveness of filovirus-disease outbreak preparedness and response efforts are currently limited by inherent challenges and persistent shortcomings. This paper delineates some of these challenges and shortcomings and provides a proposal for enhancing future filovirus-disease outbreak preparedness and response. The proposal serves as a call for prompt action by the organizations that comprise filovirus-disease outbreak response teams, namely, Ministries of Health of outbreak-prone countries, the World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—Atlanta, and others.

Keywords

• Ebola
• ebolavirus
• Marburg virus
• marburgvirus
• Filoviridae
• filovirus
• outbreak
• preparedness
• response
• data collection
• treatment
• guidelines
• surveillance