Ebola: Preparedness and Response

Dear Colleagues,

Ebola virus is recognized as one of the most aggressive pathogens that cause hemorrhagic fever in humans with an approximate fatality rate of 50%. Since its first known emergency in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976, more than 25 outbreaks of Ebola virus have occurred across Africa, including in DRC, Sudan, Uganda, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. While most outbreaks have occurred in rural areas and been speculated to result from spillover, trends in human mobility have recently led to urban outbreaks, as was notably observed in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia during the West African outbreak between 2013 and 2016. With more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths, the West African outbreak of Ebola virus disease posed a major global health challenge. Despite the successful development of an effective vaccine following the West African outbreak, the weak health infrastructure, public distrust, and socio-political turmoils in many high-risk countries continue to hinder quick control of the disease. The world’s second-largest Ebola outbreak, prolonged for nearly two years in the eastern DRC and claiming more than 2000 lives, was declared to be over on 25 June 2020.

As Ebola continues to threaten health security globally and in resource-constrained African countries specifically, this Special Issue aims to showcase the crucial work that is being done to understand the epidemiology of Ebola, evaluate the effectiveness of preventative measures, and assess various control strategies. We specifically seek to highlight research providing insight into optimal and cost-effective preventative and control strategies that could be instrumental in resource-constrained settings. We invite manuscripts for this collection in the following areas: novel surveillance approaches; large-scale efforts at risk communication and community engagement; advances in national laboratory biosafety and biosecurity; viral ecology during recent outbreaks; advances in diagnosis and treatment for Ebola virus disease; spatial dissemination of Ebola virus due to human mobility; and population-level effectiveness of vaccination strategies. Manuscripts may take the form of unique case studies; lessons from the field; research articles on descriptive epidemiology; or research articles on population-level studies.

Dr. Abhishek Pandey
Dr. Laura Skirp
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Ebola virus disease;
• cost effectiveness;
• clinical management;
• bio safety and bio security;
• program evaluation;
• evidence-based decision-making.