WHO’s response

In coordination with national and regional authorities and technical partners, WHO has deployed experts to help assess and control the situation. Isolation facilities and a mobile laboratory have been established; infection prevention and control and clinical management guidance is being provided; and awareness and education campaigns, social mobilization, and risk communications activities are taking place throughout the affected areas.

Anyone who has stayed in areas where EVD cases have recently been reported should be aware of the symptoms of infection and seek medical attention at the first sign of illness.

Clinicians managing returning travellers from visiting these areas with compatible symptoms are advised to take into consideration the possibility of EVD. Malaria, typhoid fever, shigellosis, cholera, leptospirosis, plague, rickettsiosis, relapsing fever, meningitis, hepatitis and other viral haemorrhagic fevers are differential diagnosis to consider in these patients.

WHO encourages countries to strengthen surveillance, including surveillance for illness compatible with EVD, and to carefully review any unusual patterns, in order to ensure identification and reporting of human infections under the IHR (2005), and encourages countries to continue national health preparedness actions.

WHO does not recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied with respect to this event.