NECSI has opened a field office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to facilitate our efforts to combat Ebola and other epidemics and prevent future pandemics. In 2006, our research predicted the likelihood of a virulent Ebola outbreak affecting multiple countries. This prediction was realized in the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, which was more than 10 times larger than any previous outbreak. During the outbreak, we provided policy advice to local and international organizations. Then, as now, we advocated for community-based prevention of transmission over traditional approaches to epidemic containment, like contact-tracing, which are difficult to maintain in densely populated urban areas. Our research supports this approach, and community-level strategies brought a dramatic end to the epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

We are now coordinating response efforts for the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with international partners. NECSI is a member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), a multidisciplinary network of technical and operational resources from over 200 global, regional and national public health institutions, specialist public health networks in epidemiology, infection control and biomedical sciences, networks of laboratories, many United Nations organizations and international nongovernmental organizations. GOARN harnesses international resources at the request of affected WHO Member States to augment their response to ongoing or potential public health emergencies.