摘要：Introduction: The West African sub-continent is currently experiencing, it’s first, and ironically, largest and longestEbola Viral Diseases (EVD) outbreak ever documented in modern medical history. The current outbreak is significant in several ways, including longevity, magnitude of morbidity and mortality, occurrence outside the traditional niches, rapid spread and potential of becoming a global health tragedy. The authors provided explicit insights into the current and historical background, driver of the epidemic, societal impacts, status of vaccines and drugs development and proffered recommendations to halt and prevent future occurrences. Method: The authors drew or synthesized pieces of evidence from relevant literature and multiple data sources as well as experiences from public health practice in West Africa. Result: There are strong indications that the EVD may have been triggered by human activities into the forest ecosystem spurred by increasing population and poverty-driven forest-dependent local economy. Containment efforts are being hampered by weak and fragile health systems including public health surveillance and weak governance, certain socio-anthropological factors, fast travels (improved transport systems) and globalization. The societal impacts of the EBV outbreak are grave-including economic shutdown, weakening of socio-political systems, psychological distress, and unprecedented consumption of scares health resources. The research and development pipeline for product against EBV seems to grossly insufficient. Conclusion: The outbreak of Ebola and the seeming difficulty to contain the epidemic is simply a reflection of the weak health systems, surveillance and emergency preparedness/response in many Sub-Sahara African countries, poverty and disconnect between the government and the people. Although interventions by the UN and other international development agencies could eventually halt the epidemic, local communities must be engaged to build trust and create demand for the public health interventions being implemented in the Ebola-ravaged populations. In the intermediate and long term, Post-Ebola rehabilitation should focus on strengthening of health systems, improving awareness about zoonosis and health behaviour, alleviating poverty and mitigating the impact of triggering factors. Finally, huge and sustained investments to spur research and development of disease control tools for emerging and pernicious infectious diseases (not only EVD).
关键词：Ebola Viral Disease; Globalisation; zoonosis; Health System; Economy; Political Stability
