Skip to main content

Investigation and public health management of people with possible Ebola virus disease infection

Countries
DR Congo
+ 1 more
Sources
ECDC
Publication date
Origin
View original

Scope

This document aims to provide guidance to EU/EEA public health authorities, public health professionals and healthcare practitioners for the management of persons having had contact with cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) after visiting or working in an area that is affected by EVD; also covered is occupational exposure to the disease.

This document replaces technical documents produced during the EVD outbreak in West Africa (2014–2016), namely Public health management of persons having had contact with Ebola virus disease cases in the EU’ published on 23 October 2014, updated on 10 November 2014 [1,2], and Infection prevention and control measures for Ebola virus disease, management of healthcare workers returning from Ebola-affected areas published on 22 January 2015 [3].

As long as an EVD outbreak is active, a person who has travelled from, or worked in, an EVD-affected area might develop EVD after arriving in a non-affected country. Decreasing the risk of Ebola virus transmission predominantly depends on early detection and isolation of EVD cases as well as on timely detection of new cases among contacts through contact tracing and appropriate infection prevention and control (IPC) measures [4,5]. EVD ring vaccination is an additional response measure implemented during the recent EVD outbreaks aiming to prevent the spread of EVD in the community [4,5].