The West African Ebola emergency and reconstruction; lessons from Public Health England.

BACKGROUND: West African governments, the WHO and wider international community were caught unprepared for the world's largest Ebola outbreak of 2014-16. This was an unprecedented challenge to local services and international agencies, since the emergency required high-tech molecular diagnostic services operated by specialist staff and a coordinated emergency response in addition to humanitarian support, which was not available at the beginning of the outbreak. Public Health England (PHE), as a new national public health agency was well placed to provide support for these needs. After the outbreak, PHE supported reconstruction to ensure diagnostic and emergency planning capability remained in place in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak and build necessary public health infrastructure for the future. The article describes the role PHE played as a national public health agency supporting reconstruction and long-term development through the UK Government (Department for International Development) programme called 'Resilient Zero'. SOURCES OF DATA: Public Health England (PHE), UK Government's Department for International Development, WHO, US Centers for Communicable Diseases (CDC), China Centre for Communicable Diseases (China CDC). AREAS OF AGREEMENT: The need for reliable, sustainable, in country molecular diagnostics, together with a programme to strengthen in country Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response (EPRR). AREAS OF CONTROVERSY: Providing high tech molecular capability in a resource-poor West African country with variable provision of basic diagnostic equipment, intermittent power supply, ineffective supply chains and maintaining training capacity for emergency planning in the long term. Emergency planning models from the West needed to be adapted for the countries' context. Short term aid projects as a model did not suite this development requirement. GROWING POINTS: PHE had strong local and international political support to reconstruct three Government regional laboratories and deploy molecular technology. Significant learning by PHE as a national public health agency and sharing this will be of benefit to other national public health agencies. UK staff reported increased levels of satisfaction and experience relevant to public health practice. The Sierra Leonean Government and officials requested long-term levels of commitment. It is important for agencies such as PHE to constantly learn, develop long-term institutional partnerships and play a bigger role with other similar agencies internationally. AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH: How best to support sustainable high-tech molecular technology in West Africa and modules for emergency planning relevant to the context; evidence for long term versus short-term support for highly complex diagnostic capabilities; relevance to maintaining individual country public health infrastructure to ensuring global health security; benefits of overseas work for employee of a national agency.

Assessment of Environmental Contamination and Environmental Decontamination Practices within an Ebola Holding Unit, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Evidence to inform decontamination practices at Ebola holding units (EHUs) and treatment centres is lacking. We conducted an audit of decontamination procedures inside Connaught Hospital EHU in Freetown, Sierra Leone, by assessing environmental swab specimens for evidence of contamination with Ebola virus by RT-PCR. Swabs were collected following discharge of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) patients before and after routine decontamination. Prior to decontamination, Ebola virus RNA was detected within a limited area at all bedside sites tested, but not at any sites distant to the bedside. Following decontamination, few areas contained detectable Ebola virus RNA. In areas beneath the bed there was evidence of transfer of Ebola virus material during cleaning. Retraining of cleaning staff reduced evidence of environmental contamination after decontamination. Current decontamination procedures appear to be effective in eradicating persistence of viral RNA. This study supports the use of viral swabs to assess Ebola viral contamination within the clinical setting. We recommend that regular refresher training of cleaning staff and audit of environmental contamination become standard practice at all Ebola care facilities during EVD outbreaks.

Molecular epidemiology of selected sexually transmitted infections.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) and Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) are established pathogens for human genital tract. However, the role of Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU) and Ureaplasma parvum (UP) in genital pathology is poorly unerstood. A prospective study to investigate the prevalence of above infections was performed on a cohort of 1,718 consecutive patients attending a Genitourinary Medicine (GUM) clinic. A previously published in-house real-time PCR assay, for the detection of CT DNA in genital swabs, was modified for this study. Two amplification reactions detected the DNAs of TV, NG, MG, CT, UU and UP in genital swabs from 4 (0.2%), 11 (0.6%), 17 (1%), 129 (8%), 282 (16%) and 636 (37%) patients, respectively. 594 (70%) of 848 women and 333 (38%) of 870 men were infected with at least one type of microorganism. Among 594 infected females, 485 (82%) had a single infection, 97 (16%) had a double infection, and 12 (2%) had a triple infection. Of the 333 infected men, 304 (91%) had a single infection, 27 (8%) had a double infection, and 2 (1%) had a triple infection. The prevalence of infection in both genders decreased with increasing age. The prevalence proportion of UP was significantly higher in women (54%) compared with men (18%). The high prevalence of UU and UP suggests that these bacteria are commensals of genital tract.

Genital chlamydial infection: association between clinical features, organism genotype and load.

The association between the clinical features of genital chlamydial infection and organism genotype and load was evaluated. Chlamydial DNA was detected and quantified in genital swabs from 233 (7 %) of 3384 consecutive patients attending a genitourinary medicine clinic. The chlamydia-positive subcohort comprised 132 (57 %) females and 101 (43 %) males. Clinical features were present in 33 % women and 72 % men. The chlamydial load was found to be higher in women (median load: 5.6 log) than men (median load: 3.5 log). Single variable analysis failed to show a significant association between chlamydial load and clinical features (P value = 0.3). Owing to the limited amount of clinical material, information on chlamydial genotypes was available for 70 % (n = 162) of chlamydia-positive patients. However, multivariable analysis of these samples did show a significant association between chlamydial load and clinical features (P value = 0.02). This discrepancy is most probably due to the difference in the amount of data analysed by single variable (data from 233 patients) and multivariable (data from 162 patients) analysis. The distribution of chlamydia genotypes was as follows: type E (46 %), F (22 %), D (8 %), K (8 %), G (7 %), J (4 %), I (1 %) and H (0.6 %). No statistically significant association was observed between chlamydial genotype and clinical features in either single variable (P value = 0.6) or multivariable (P value = 0.4) analysis. These findings suggest that chlamydial load and diversity in the ompA gene plays little, if any, role in the pathogenesis of genital chlamydial infection.