title: Practices and thinking of laboratory detection in the aid to West Africa to fight against Ebola.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa has brought great disaster to the people's health in affected countries. China dispatched first group of public health experts and medical staff to Sierra Leone in September 2014 to fight Ebola.
  
  
  METHODS
  To systematically collect huge amount of primary data, and to make analysis, draw conclusions and lessons in terms of six aspects, respectively as training before departure, local disease information, track of epidemic situation, transformation of temporary laboratory, detection of Ebola virus samples as well as assessment through single blind test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  1) Our team has launched preparatory works in advance before going to Sierra Leone. 2) Malaria is the country's severest infectious disease. 3) Observation centers were overcrowded with large number of suspected cases being inspected, implying high risk of nosocomial infection. 4) A BSL-II laboratory with 3 work areas and 2 buffer areas was built, achieving several major functions within 6 days. 5) Confirmed by South African Raqqa laboratory, our detection accuracy reached 100%. 6) At one week before return, the daily average sample amount of our team reached 66 cases and our detection capability was equivalent to that of USA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Successful experience from fighting against Ebola in Sierra Leone could be summarized as: 1) Optimized processes and scientific security measures are prerequisite to improving the detection ability. 2) The close collaboration between laboratory and observation center has created a new model of China's foreign aid. 3) Comprehensive information investigation and training lay a solid foundation for the successful completion of tasks.
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: X Y
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: B K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Y X
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: G Z
authors.initials: GZ
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Y J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Zeng
mesh_terms: D000354:Africa, Western; D002681:China; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D029043:Ebolavirus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D058872:Epidemics; D005160:Facility Design and Construction; D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D007753:Laboratories; D017056:Medical Laboratory Personnel; D012807:Sierra Leone / Q000453:epidemiology; D016037:Single-Blind Method
keywords: Ebola; Sierra Leone.; laboratory detection; virus