Evaluation of a decentralised model of care on case isolation and patient outcomes during the 2018–20 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a retrospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: Partway into the 2018–20 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), a new strategy of decentralised care was initiated to address delays in care seeking, improve community acceptance, and reduce the risk of Ebola virus disease (EVD) transmission through early case isolation. Unlike centralised EVD facilities (transit and treatment centres), which operated in parallel to the existing health-care system and focused exclusively on EVD, decentralised facilities were integrated into existing health-care structures with which communities were already familiar, and designed to continue providing health care for patients with other non-EVD illnesses. Here we aim to assess the strategy of decentralised care by comparing admission delays and patient outcomes among the three types of EVD facilities (decentralised, transit, and treatment).

METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of routinely collected data from all individuals admitted to EVD facilities (12 treatment, nine transit, and 21 decentralised facilities) at any point during the Ebola outbreak from July 27, 2018, to June 24, 2020 in DR Congo. We used multivariate mixed-effect regression to model admission delays (the number of days between symptom onset and admission to an EVD facility) and patient outcomes (survived or died), as functions of facility type at first admission and date of admission, while controlling for a variety of other covariates.

FINDINGS: Over the course of the outbreak 60 465 patients were admitted to EVD facilities, of which 2289 (3·8%) were confirmed to be EVD positive. Covariate-adjusted admission delays were somewhat higher among patients presenting to transit facilities (adjusted rate ratio 1·14 [95% CI 0·95–1·32]) or treatment facilities (1·18 [1·00–1·36]) compared with decentralised facilities. Similarly, compared with decentralised facilities, adjusted case-fatality risks were slightly higher among patients presenting to transit facilities (adjusted risk ratio 1·04 [0·82–1·26]) or treatment facilities (1·03 [0·82–1·24]).

INTERPRETATION: As was observed during the 2013–16 west Africa outbreak and the 2020 outbreak in the Equateur province of DR Congo, patients suspected of EVD that presented to decentralised facilities had modestly shorter admission delays than patients presenting to centralised facility types. Case-fatality risks were slightly lower among patients presenting to decentralised facilities; however, this finding was not statistically significant and so it is difficult to assess the generalisability.

FUNDING: Médecins Sans Frontières.