Managing emerging transnational public health security threats: lessons learned from the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak

Aaron M. Wendelboe, Micah McCumber, Julie Erb-Alvarez, Nicholas Mould, Richard W. Childs, James L. Regens

Pandemics pose significant security/stability risks to nations with fragile infrastructures. We evaluated characteristics of the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak to elucidate lessons learned for managing transnational public health security threats. We used publically available data to compare demographic and outbreak-specific data for Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, including key indicator data by the World Health Organization. Pearson correlation statistics were calculated to compare country-level infrastructure characteristics with outbreak size and duration. Hospital bed density was inversely correlated with longer EVD outbreak duration (r = - 0.99). Country-specific funding amount allocations were more likely associated with number of incident cases than the population at-risk or infrastructure needs. Key indicators demonstrating challenges for Guinea included: number of unsafe burials, percent of EVD-positive samples, and days between symptom onset and case hospitalization. Sierra Leone's primary key indicator was the number of districts with ≥1 security incident. Liberia controlled their outbreak before much of the key-indicator data were collected. Many of the country-level factors, particularly the WHO key indicators were associated with controlling the epidemic. The infrastructure of countries affected by communicable diseases should be assessed by international political and public health leaders.