Page 153 - Timeliness of Infectious Disease Notification & Response Systems - Corien Swaan

Ebola preparedness among the curative and the public health sector 151
Introduction
In March 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was notified of an out- break of Ebola viral disease (EVD) in Guinea, shortly followed by the neighbour- ing countries Liberia and Sierra Leone. In August 2014, the WHO declared the ongoing outbreak a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ (1). In the Netherlands, EVD is a ‘group A’ notifiable disease, implicating that the Cen- tre for Infectious Disease Control (CID) of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), coordinates response on national level on behalf of the Ministry of Health. Public Health Services (PHSs) coordinate prepared- ness and response regionally. Seven regional public health consultants function in 7 regions as intermediate between CID and PHSs to identify needs among PHSs for the CID to react on, and to facilitate implementation of CID policy in the PHSs regions.
Figure 1. Chain of care for patient with suspected EVD
Black arrows: own initiative of patient, no isolation procedures. Grey arrows: referral by ambulance in isolation.
Abbreviation: EVD, Ebola virus disease
In March 2014, the CID initially alerted PHSs and other specialists in public health, infectious disease, and microbiology about the outbreak and existing Dutch EVD guidelines according to standardized procedures, for the event of an EVD import patient (2, 3). The expansion of the outbreak, WHO’s declaration
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