Rapid Response to Ebola Viral Disease in West Africa through Strengthening of Surveillance Systems and Disruption of Chain of Transmission Interventions

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The West Africa Ebola response was the largest international outbreak response in CDC’s history. Thousands of highly trained public health professionals in Africa and the United States helped stop the epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Now CDC is working with implementing partners to increase regional public health capacity through the Global Health Security Agenda. CDC is helping to strengthen public health emergency management response by establishing emergency operations centers, providing high-quality training for the healthcare workforce in epidemiology and outbreak response, and rebuilding surveillance and laboratory systems. Without these public health systems in place and functional at community, district, and national levels in Liberia and Sierra Leone, these countries remain at risk for an Ebola resurgence as well as other infectious diseases of public health importance. Helping these countries, through the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), establish these public health systems and develop measurable outcomes of the program will be in alignment with one (or more) of the following performance goal(s) for the emergency management capabilities protects people in America, West Africa, and around the world from infectious disease outbreaks.

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