ABSTRACT
The global response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa in 2014–2016 occurred on several levels. Statements by the World Health Organization (WHO) early in the spring of 2014, suggested that the WHO had not fully recognized and acknowledged the rate at which the outbreak was spreading in West Africa and the likelihood that it would be much larger than prior outbreaks of EVD in Africa. Quarantine of health care workers returning to the US from West Africa became a controversial issue during a period in the fall of 2014 when unwarranted fear of contagion among the general public reached a peak. During 2014–2016 EVD outbreaks, isolation was used effectively in West African facilities to prevent transmission. Efforts to identify effective treatments and vaccines to combat and prevent EVD accelerated dramatically during the 2014–2016 epidemics. The global response to the 2014–2016 West African outbreak of Ebola virus disease underscored several important themes, both positive and negative.
