Evaluation of ECDC Ebola deployment in Guinea : final report

Following a request from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) made its first major contribution to outbreak response activities in the field in 2014-2015, with a total of 62 experts mobilised by ECDC and deployed through WHO/Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) to support the international Ebola response in Guinea. The initiative lasted from 27 November 2014 to 23 October 2015 and upon completion in November 2015, ECDC's Senior Management Team requested the International Relations Section to carry out a comprehensive internal evaluation of this activity. The aim of the evaluation was to review the implementation, determine the lessons learnt and formulate recommendations to strengthen ECDC's capacity to mobilise experts for field deployment to support future outbreak response initiatives, both in and outside the EU. The evaluation looked at all the key stages of expert mobilisation and deployment (i.e. pre-deployment, deployment and post deployment). It relied on a qualitative methodology involving a review of ECDC's internal plans and procedures, one-to-one semi-structured interviews with key internal and external stakeholders and an on-line survey of the experts mobilised by ECDC for deployment in Guinea.