Ebola 2014

The 2014 Ebola outbreak actually began in late 2013 when the index patient, thought to be a two year old child in Guinea, Africa fell ill and subsequently infected his mother and then other family members. The outbreak spread and eventually reached neighboring countries before The World Health Organization made a public notice about the outbreak. It was not until late in the year, 2014 that media began covering the outbreak in greater proportion and that was initiated by the series of incidents surrounding the travel from Liberia of an infected man into the United States where he visited a hospital twice before being admitted. Once admitted, he infected two nurses before he died and this spiraled into numerous policy and protocol changes for not only hospitals, but also first responders and numerous other companies and agencies.

The 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak has created a need for a complete resource that can be understood by both medical personnel and those outside of the medical field. There has long been a need for a short but thorough reference for Ebola and this was the motive behind this publication. Information contained in this reference is cited to additional resources that provide more in-depth knowledge for those interested. The topics covered are current, comprehensive, fact-based and do not attempt to convey blame or sell products. Knowing about this virus, the disease it causes, and the improvisation used in Africa should provide a strong basis for managing and containing the outbreak in Africa as well as other countries where travel introduces the disease. Knowledge is power and this short resource provides that to its readers with a complete list of all of the references and their links where appropriate. The book is available through all eBook retailers and in print through Amazon for a print version. It has been translated into Portuguese and Spanish in the eBook format as well.

After writing this book, I had the privilege of conversing with numerous emergency response teams globally to help update their protocols for responding to and handling highly infectious patients. I hope anyone interested in this kind of content will benefit from my efforts.