Public health management of persons having had contact with Ebola virus disease cases in the EU - update

The unprecedented magnitude and geographical extent of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa has overwhelmed the local response capacity, posing an extreme challenge for outbreak containment.

As long as the outbreak in West Africa continues, it can be expected that a person who has travelled from an Ebola-affected area might develop EVD after arriving in a non-affected country, for example in the EU. On 30 September 2014, CDC confirmed the first case1 of Ebola diagnosed in the United States in a person who had travelled from Liberia.

Certain cases from the affected areas are currently being medically evacuated to Europe and the USA. Furthermore, as of 7 November 2014, three healthcare workers have been infected outside the affected countries after caring for EVD cases: one in Spain and two in the USA.

Decreasing the risk of Ebola virus transmission is dependent on early detection and isolation of cases, and the early detection and isolation of new EVD cases among their contacts, through contact tracing and monitoring. There is a risk of transmission in the period between the onset of the first symptoms, the recognition of the possibility of EVD by healthcare professionals and the subsequent isolation of the patient.