Incident Management Systems Are Essential for Effective Coordination of Large Disease Outbreaks: Perspectives from the Coordination of the Ebola Outbreak Response in Sierra Leone

Abstract

We recommend the establishment of EOCs with simple incident management system-based coordination prior to outbreaks, strong government leadership, decentralization of coordination systems, and functions to the epicenter of outbreaks, with clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities between different levels, regular training of key coordination leaders, and better community participation as methods to improve coordination of future disease outbreaks.