Ebola Holding Units at government hospitals in Sierra Leone: evidence for a flexible and effective model for safe isolation, early treatment initiation, hospital safety and health system functioning

The 2014-2015 West African outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people and infected over 27,000 across seven countries. Traditional approaches to containing EVD proved inadequate and new approaches for controlling the outbreak were required. The Ministry of Hea...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	BMJ global health Vol. 1; no. 1; p. e000030
Main Authors:	Johnson, Oliver, Youkee, Daniel, Brown, Colin S, Lado, Marta, Wurie, Alie, Bash-Taqi, Donald, Hall, Andy, Hanciles, Eva, Kamara, Isata, Kamara, Cecilia, Kamboz, Amardeep, Seedat, Ahmed, Thomas, Suzanne, Kamara, T B, Leather, Andrew J M, Kargbo, Brima
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01-06-2016 BMJ Publishing Group
Subjects:	Analysis Collaboration Community Disease prevention Ebola virus Epidemics Global health Health care Health facilities Health services Hospitals Laboratory tests Maternal & child health Nosocomial infection Nosocomial infections Outbreaks Patient safety Sanitation West Africa Sierra Leone
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	The 2014-2015 West African outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people and infected over 27,000 across seven countries. Traditional approaches to containing EVD proved inadequate and new approaches for controlling the outbreak were required. The Ministry of Health & Sanitation and King’s Sierra Leone Partnership developed a model for Ebola Holding Units (EHUs) at Government Hospitals in the capital city Freetown. The EHUs isolated screened or referred suspect patients, provided initial clinical care, undertook laboratory testing to confirm EVD status, referred onward positive cases to an Ebola Treatment Centre or negative cases to the general wards, and safely stored corpses pending collection by burial teams. Between 29th May 2014 and 19th January 2015, our five units had isolated approximately 37% (1159) of the 3097 confirmed cases within Western Urban and Rural district. Nosocomial transmission of EVD within the units appears lower than previously documented at other facilities and staff infection rates were also low. We found that EHUs are a flexible and effective model of rapid diagnosis, safe isolation and early initial treatment. We also demonstrated that it is possible for international partners and government facilities to collaborate closely during a humanitarian crisis.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	2059-7908 2059-7908
DOI:	10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000030