Success Story: For five months this was a familiar sign in parts of Uganda. The Uganda Ebola outbreak was first reported in October 2000. Today, it is officially over.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported at the end of February 2001 that the last person to be infected by the virus had recovered 42 days earlier twice the maximum incubation period for Ebola to develop.

The international response in support of the Government of Uganda helped to break the cycle of transmission of the virus which killed 224 people there, including health workers and Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, who first identified the outbreak.

First reports from Gulu District of an unusual severe febrile illness reached the Ugandan Ministry of Health in Kampala on 8 October 2000. Even before the disease was formally identified as Ebola, the Government of Uganda facilitated rapid access to the outbreak area, and partners in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network responded with technical experts, protective equipment and logistics support.

Initial laboratory confirmation was carried out by the National Institute of Virology in South Africa. Throughout the outbreak, a field laboratory was maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at Lacor Hospital. This innovative measure guaranteed essential laboratory services for diagnostic tests to confirm or refute Ebola infection, and for packaging and transport of clinical samples requiring additional investigations.

"The successful operation in Uganda emphasized what can be achieved when we identify epidemic threats rapidly and act together swiftly. Today, we recognize the efforts of the people of Uganda and the contributions and achievements of our partners' said David Heymann, Executive Director of WHO Communicable Diseases. "Epidemic prone diseases are harmful to communities and ignore national borders. We need to recognize them as threats to global health security and coordinate effective international solutions.

More than 20 international non-governmental organizations and government agencies from the WHO Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network worked together to combat the outbreak. In particular, CDC, based in Georgia, United States, Epicentre, Health Canada, Italian Cooperation, Medecins sans Frontieres, the Red Cross and the United Nations Children's Fund, together with institutions in Belgium, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, worked closely with the doctors, nurses and staff at the Gulu Hospital and Lacor Hospital, and with Ugandan government officials.

Direct financial support to the Ebola Appeal was provided by Canada, the European Commission, Ireland, Norway and Japan to supplement contingency funding provided by Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, many donors and agencies provided assistance directly to Uganda. The mobilization of the local community in Gulu played a pivotal role in controlling the Ebola outbreak and is central to a new early-warning surveillance system for epidemic-prone diseases. Following the outbreak, partners in the Response Network and Uganda's Ministry of Health are implementing a community-based disease surveillance system that will significantly improve people's lives and represents a potential model for future development of community-based surveillance systems.

Ebola haemorrhagic fever (EHF) is one of the most virulent viral diseases known to humankind, causing death in 50 to 90 per cent of all clinically ill cases. The virus was first identified in a western equatorial province of Sudan and in a nearby region of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1976 after significant epidemics in Yambuku, northern Zaire, and in Nzara, southern Sudan. Including the most recent outbreak, about 1,500 cases, with over 1,000 deaths, have been documented since the virus was discovered.