Implementation of Ebola Case-Finding Using a Village Chieftaincy Taskforce in a Remote Outbreak – Liberia, 2014

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
• Personal Author:
  Hagan, Jose E. ; Smith, Wilmot ; Pillai, Satish K. ; Yeoman, Kristin ; Gupta, Sundeep ; Neatherlin, John C. ; Slutsker, Laurence ; Lindblade, Kim A. ; DeCock, Kevin M. ; Kateh, Francis N. ; Nyenswah, Tolbert G.
• Description:
  On October 16, 2014, a woman aged 48 years traveled from Monrovia, Liberia, to the Kayah region of Rivercess County, a remote, resource-poor, and sparsely populated region of Liberia, and died on October 21 with symptoms compatible with Ebola virus disease (Ebola). She was buried in accordance with local tradition, which included grooming, touching, and kissing the body by family and other community members while it was being prepared for burial. During October 24 - November 12, eight persons with probable and 13 with confirmed Ebola epidemiologically linked to the deceased woman had onset of symptoms. Nineteen of the 21 persons lived in five nearby villages in Kayah region; two, both with probable cases, lived in neighboring Grand Bassa County. Four of the confirmed cases in Kayah were linked by time and location, although the source case could not be determined because the patients had more than one exposure. This report describes a novel system to supplement contact tracing by quickly identifying potential cases among villages in a remote area with limited infrastructure. An active surveillance network was created by working with community leadership to establish village-to-village communication relays that could, with minimal additional investment of resources or training, rapidly overcome the obstacle to outbreak control that was posed by the lack of means of communication and transportation in the remote area. The Kayah region is a chiefdom containing 37 villages with approximately 5,000 persons, led by a council of village chiefs. The CDC and county health team requested a meeting with the council of chiefs, as well as representatives of men, women, youths, and elders of the community, to hear their concerns, identify needs, and to engage them as partners in social mobilization to sensitize the community to the urgency of outbreak control, and to overcome resistance to Ebola messaging and measures to prevent transmission. Following this meeting, the chiefs and community members expressed a high level of enthusiasm for participating in the Ebola response in a concrete and visible way as members of a Chieftancy Task Force, and contributed to the design of the surveillance system. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Disease Control Communications Media Emergencies Epidemiology Mortality Occupational Health Public Health Race Factors Safety Staff Development Viral Diseases

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• Keywords:
  Public-health; Racial-factors; Viral-diseases; Viral-infections; Disease-control; Disease-transmission; Surveillance-programs; Sociology; Sociological-factors; Communication-systems; Mortality-data; Exposure-methods; Epidemiology; Training; Disease-prevention; Emergency-response
• Source:
  MMWR 2015 Feb; 64(7):183-185
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• ISSN:
  0149-2195
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Georgia ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  3 pdf pages
• Contributor:
  Gergonne, Bernadette
• Volume:
  64
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20045808
• Citation:
  MMWR 2015 Feb; 64(7):183-185
• Email:
  jehagan@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c88294de0db4a89a2092b20cddb8cd796bed17185f634ce4de8daeceeecebc4c4d61c1bc2284cce627d72bdb8e1adb4d2822f3a7cfef422d79bfe1188df4db36
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/183143/cdc_183143_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 281.79 KB ]