On August 8th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the Ebola virus situation in Africa is a 'Public Health Emergency of International Concern'. The PREPARE Outbreak Mode Committee (OMC), which is a standing PREPARE committee, met by teleconference on the same day to discuss whether and to what extent PREPARE should respond to the Ebola virus situation. The PREPARE OMC is responsible for assessing the need for PREPARE to move into different levels of Outbreak Research Mode.

The OMC decided that whilst the risks of significant numbers of Ebola virus cases entering Europe and of subsequent local transmission within Europe currently appear low, PREPARE should make an urgent appraisal of the available evidence on clinical and epidemiological aspects of Ebola virus disease in order to inform timely decisions about the PREPARE clinical research response to this outbreak. As an initial step the OMC has therefore developed a short web-based questionnaire that was send out to the Clinical Networks in PREPARE, including 984 contacts within 40 countries. The survey aims to provide a general overview of the current state of Ebola preparedness and capacity in PREPARE affiliated hospitals in Europe.

Knowledge of the capacity of European healthcare facilities to manage confirmed or suspected Ebola patients is essential in order to develop an appropriate and coordinated European clinical research response to improve understanding of the disease and its clinical management.

Actions like these will enable PREPARE to initiate a rapid and coordinated deployment of Europe’s clinical investigators, within 48 hours of any severe outbreak, thereby saving lives and advance medical knowledge.