Infection Prevention and Control Recovery Plans and Implementation: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone Inter-country Meeting

Report of a meeting on infection prevention and control that took place on 20-22 July 2015, in Monrovia, Liberia.

It provides recommendations on IPC (infection prevention and control) for the 3 affected countries. It covers: the IPC achievements, gaps during the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone; the overview of implementation tools and training packages; IPC minimum standards in health-care facilities; monitoring indicators and benchmarking; priorities and plans, and technical support needs for 2016-2017.

Infection prevention and control (IPC) has played a critical role in controlling the worst ever Ebola outbreak, which has affected West Africa since December 2013. Absence of basic IPC measures and infrastructure in both health care settings and the community was one of the key determinants of the unprecedented magnitude of this Ebola outbreak. Loss of precious health-care workers (HCWs) in all three affected countries was directly linked to IPC gaps and to a suboptimal implementation of standard precautions at the point of care. IPC is further hampered by the lack of access to clean water, sanitation and basic hygiene, which is of great concern in this region, as well as globally.