Slow response contributed to scale of west African Ebola epidemic, CDC concludes

A slow initial response contributed to the scale of the 2014-16 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa that infected more than 28 000 people and killed more than 11 000, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in a new report detailing its early response to the situation.1

Writing in the report’s introduction, CDC director Tom Frieden noted that it was not well recognized how close the world came to a global catastrophe during the west African outbreak. He wrote, “If Ebola had not been rapidly contained in Lagos, Nigeria, a densely populated city with many international airline connections, the disease most likely would have spread to other parts of Nigeria, elsewhere in Africa, and possibly to other continents.”

The 106 page report appeared as a supplement in the 8 July issue of CDC’s …