West Africa 2013: Re-examining Ebola

Abstract

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) that occurred from 2013 to 2016 in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, with imported cases to three neighboring African countries as well as to the United States and Europe, constituted a major humanitarian disaster. The outbreak numbered over 28,500 cases, more than 10 times the number cumulatively registered from all previous EVD outbreaks combined, with at least 11,000 deaths, and resulted in billions of dollars of lost economic growth to an already impoverished region. The unprecedented scale of West Africa 2013 took the world by surprise and laid bare deficiencies in our response capacity to complex humanitarian disasters of highly infectious and lethal pathogens. However, the magnitude of West Africa 2013 also provided an, albeit unwelcome, unique opportunity and obligation to better understand the biology and epidemiology of EVD and, equally as important, the many scientific, economic, social, political, ethical, and logistical challenges in confronting emerging diseases in the modern era. Here we re-examine EVD, reviewing the unique challenges and scientific advances of West Africa 2013, contrasting them with the prior assumptions and classical teachings, identifying what they have taught us and what we still have to learn.