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Analysis
Responding to ever-changing epidemiological dynamics of Ebola virus disease
  1. Yuki Maehira1,
  2. Yohei Kurosaki2,
  3. Tomoya Saito3,
  4. Jiro Yasuda2,
  5. Masayoshi Tarui4,
  6. Denis J M Malvy5,
  7. Tsutomu Takeuchi1
  1. 1St. Luke's International University, Tokyo, Japan
  2. 2Institute of Tropical Medicine (NEKKEN), Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
  3. 3National Institute of Public Health, Saitama, Japan
  4. 4Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
  5. 5Inserm 1219, University of Bordeaux & Division of Clinical Tropical Medicine, CHU de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
  1. Correspondence to Yuki Maehira; maehiray{at}snow.ocn.ne.jp

Abstract

With the incidence and mortality rates of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone now at zero and reports of the largest and most complex EVD outbreak in history no longer on the front pages of newspapers worldwide, the urgency of that crisis seems to have subsided. During this lull after the storm and before the next one, the international community needs to engage in a ‘lessons-learned’ exercise with respect to our collective scientific, clinical and public health preparedness. This engagement must identify pragmatic, innovative mechanisms at multinational, national and community levels that allow research and development of next generation diagnostics and therapeutics, the safe and effective practice of medicine, and the maintenance of public health to keep pace with the rapid epidemiological dynamics of EVD and other deadly infectious diseases.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000180

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Seye Abimbola.

    • Contributors YM conceived and wrote the first draft of the manuscript under TT's overall technical supervision. TS, YK, JY and MT reviewed the specialist topics contained in the manuscript and revised them accordingly in person or by email. DJMM reviewed the subsequent versions and advised on substantive points in the affected countries’ context. All authors contributed equally to the planning, writing and revision of this manuscript.

    • Funding St. Luke's International University, Tokyo, Japan operates as a national coordination hub for international R&D collaboration under the financial contract of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) of Japan (grant number:15fk0108039h0001-0003) to conduct the Project on R&D of Therapeutics and Diagnostics for the Containment of EVD.

    • Competing interests Toyama Chemicals Co., Ltd. is the developer and supplier of favipiravir for clinical studies and patient care in Guinea as well as for evacuated cases. JY and YK of Nagasaki University are collaborating with Toshiba Medical Systems Corp. to develop an EVD diagnostic kit for use with RT-LAMP methods. Toyama Chemicals Co., Ltd. and Toshiba Medical Systems Corp. are the designees of a project to conduct relevant R&D activities coordinated by St. Luke's International University, under the AMED contract.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.