Key Messages
Despite improvements in care management with the development of a new Ebola vaccine and therapeutics, survivorship is still low (between 40% and 50%) in recent outbreaks due to low community acceptance of these lifesaving interventions.
During an outbreak, the top-down strategy of control measures prioritizing case detection and management over risk communication and community engagement fails to address public concerns about the disease and available interventions, such as vaccines and therapeutics.
When the outbreak is over, the intense level of outbreak response activities ends abruptly and activities that maintain community awareness and engagement rarely continue, fueling communities’ feelings of mistrust and abandonment.
In high-risk communities for Ebola outbreaks, it is important that external partners work with the local communities to maintain Ebola preparedness activities between Ebola outbreaks.
The continuous engagement with these communities will improve their acceptance of the existence of the disease and their adherence to response activities and interventions, such as vaccines and therapeutics, during the next Ebola outbreak. This better adherence can improve survivorship in these communities during the next Ebola outbreak.
INTRODUCTION
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ebola outbreaks have been more frequently reported in recent years, with a shortening of the intervals between outbreaks.1 Several factors have driven this change, including the impacts of deforestation on increasing small-scale cropland and mining, resulting in increased contact between humans and presumptive animal species suspected of Ebola transmission, such as fruit bats2–3; increasing numbers of Ebola survivors and the possible transmission through sexual intercourse,4 and improved detection of Ebola through better diagnostic testing.5 From August to October 2022, The Ministry of Health responded to the DRC’s 15th Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak since the first outbreak was reported in 1976, including 7 outbreaks during the last 4 years. Following …
