Background:

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a severe and, often fatal illness. Ebola spread is fast among human beings. Monitoring and surveillance of contacts is an effective measure to stop an epidemic. The aim of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of an intervention based on contact tracing and monitoring the quarantine people.

Methods:

Longitudinal analytical study with community intervention. The intervention consisted of establishing a continuous surveillance of the population of Lunsar (Sierra Leone) to detect new cases of Ebola, establishing quarantine to 96 people. During the process, Health Promotion activities were carried out. The study period includes from February 9 to March 24, 2015. The data obtained were analyzed with the statistical package SPSS, version 20.0.

Results:

7 houses, with 96 people in total, were quarantined (the average quarantine was 24.2 ± 4.9 days). At the end of the follow-up, 16 (16.7%) people tested positive for Ebola, 13 (81.2%) of whom ended up dying. The Ebola risk of infection was higher after having performed funeral practices at home (OR = 3.64, p <0.001). Furthermore, the odds ratio associated with survival result 21 times greater (OR = 21, p <0.001) in people not infected during quarantine.

Conclusions:

The contagions have occurred in families where there has been a deceaded at home. The tasks performed by the outreach team have been able to influence that only 16.7% of the quarantine people were infected. Nurses were essential in health promotion and social support to families.

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