ArticleBMJ global health2023
A community-based contact isolation strategy to reduce the spread of Ebola virus disease: an analysis of the 2018-2020 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Article in BMJ global health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Closing Critical Gaps in the 2026 Bundibugyo Ebola Response: Five Actionable Priorities.Cureus · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the implementation of the One Health approach in Guinea: Application of the NEOH framework to decentralized One Health platforms.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Access to licenced vaccines for high-threat infectious diseases: a scoping review and interpretive analysis of Ebola virus disease.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Rapid response to hemorrhagic fever emergence in Guinea: community-based systems can enhance engagement and sustainability.PloS one · 2025Article
- Toward optimal disease surveillance with graph-based active learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Factors Associated with Reliable Contact Tracing During the 2021 Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Guinea.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
21 authors at 8 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
introductionDespite tremendous progress in the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for Ebola virus disease (EVD), challenges remain in the implementation of holistic strategies to rapidly curtail outbreaks. We investigated the effectiveness of a community-based contact isolation strategy to limit the spread of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
methodsWe did a quasi-experimental comparison study. Eligible participants were EVD contacts registered from 12 June 2019 to 18 May 2020 in Beni and Mabalako Health Zones. Intervention group participants were isolated to specific community sites for the duration of their follow-up. Comparison group participants underwent contact tracing without isolation. The primary outcome was measured as the reproduction number (R) in the two groups. Secondary outcomes were the delay from symptom onset to isolation and case management, case fatality rate (CFR) and vaccination uptake.
results27 324 EVD contacts were included in the study; 585 in the intervention group and 26 739 in the comparison group. The intervention group generated 32 confirmed cases (5.5%) in the first generation, while the comparison group generated 87 (0.3%). However, the 32 confirmed cases arising from the intervention contacts did not generate any additional transmission (R=0.00), whereas the 87 confirmed cases arising from the comparison group generated 99 secondary cases (R=1.14). The average delay between symptom onset and case isolation was shorter (1.3 vs 4.8 days; p<0.0001), CFR lower (12.5% vs 48.4%; p=0.0001) and postexposure vaccination uptake higher (86.0% vs 56.8%; p<0.0001) in the intervention group compared with the comparison group. A significant difference was also found between intervention and comparison groups in survival rate at the discharge of hospitalised confirmed patients (87.9% vs 47.7%, respectively; p=0.0004).
conclusionThe community-based contact isolation strategy used in DRC shows promise as a potentially effective approach for the rapid cessation of EVD transmission, highlighting the importance of rapidly implemented, community-oriented and trust-building control strategies.
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