• Zhong-Jie Li, Wen-Xiao Tu, Xiao-Chun Wang, Guo-Qing Shi, Zun-Dong Yin, Hai-Jun Su, Tao Shen, Da-Peng Zhang, Jian-Dong Li, Shan Lv, Chun-Li Cao, Rui-Qian Xie, Hong-Zhou Lu, Rong-Meng Jiang, Zheng Cao, Zhi-Jie An, Lei-Lei Li, Jie Xu, Yan-Wen Xiong, Wei Zang, Wei Zhang, Hong-Wei Zhang, Wen-Sen Chen, Hua Ling, Wen Xu, Jian Cai, Huan-Jin Luo, Xue-Sheng Xing, Can-Jun Zheng, Qiang Wei, Xin-Xu Li, Mei Li, Hai Jiang, Li-Quan Deng, Ming-Quan Chen, Xiang Huo, Feng Xu, Xue-Hui Lai, Xi-Chen Bai, Long-Jie Ye, Jian-Yi Yao, Wen-Wu Yin, Jiao-Jin Sun, Lin Xiao, Fu-Qiang Liu, Xiao-Qiang Liu, Hong-Wei Fan, Zeng-Qiang Kou, Ji-Kun Zhou, Hao Zhang, Da-Xin Ni, Thomas T Samba, Qun Li, Hong-Jie Yu, Yu Wang, and Xiao-Feng Liang.
• Division of Infectious Disease, Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Early-warning on Infectious Disease, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
• Infect Dis Poverty. 2016 Aug 5; 5 (1): 74.

BackgroundThe Ebola virus disease spread rapidly in West Africa in 2014, leading to the loss of thousands of lives. Community engagement was one of the key strategies to interrupt Ebola transmission, and practical community level measures needed to be explored in the field and tailored to the specific context of communities.MethodsFirst, community-level education on Ebola virus disease (EVD) prevention was launched for the community's social mobilizers in six districts in Sierra Leone beginning in November 2014. Then, from January to May of 2015, in three pilot communities, local trained community members were organized to engage in implementation of EVD prevention and transmission interruption measures, by involving them in alert case report, contact tracing, and social mobilization. The epidemiological indicators of transmission interruption in three study communities were evaluated.ResultsA total of 6 016 community social mobilizers from 185 wards were trained by holding 279 workshops in the six districts, and EVD message reached an estimated 631 680 residents. In three pilot communities, 72 EVD alert cases were reported, with 70.8 % of them detected by trained local community members, and 14 EVD cases were finally identified. Contact tracing detected 64.3 % of EVD cases. The median duration of community infectivity for the cases was 1 day. The secondary attack rate was 4.2 %, and no third generation of infection was triggered. No health worker was infected, and no unsafe burial and noncompliance to EVD control measures were recorded. The community-based measures were modeled to reduce 77 EVD cases, and the EVD-free goal was achieved four months earlier in study communities than whole country of Sierra Leone.ConclusionsThe community-based strategy of social mobilization and community engagement was effective in case detection and reducing the extent of Ebola transmission in a country with weak health system. The successfully practical experience to reduce the risk of Ebola transmission in the community with poor resources would potentially be helpful for the global community to fight against the EVD and the other diseases in the future.

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