Table 1.

Glossary

key body/actor	role
national
Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS)	Led the response from March to October 2014, then participated at various levels, from chairing the ‘pillars’ to providing the bulk of the frontline workforce.
Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF)	Played a key role in several aspects, from staffing the NERC and building and running Ebola treatment units, to managing dead body collection and burials.
National Ebola Response Centre (NERC)	Body responsible for the national operational aspect of the response, setting strategy, designing policy and directing major operations, as well as collating and interpreting data from across the country to inform the response.
District Ebola Response Centre (DERC)	Command and control centre established in all districts to execute response interventions through the ‘pillars,’ such as delivering patients to beds, burying bodies, managing quarantines, contact tracing.
international
Combined joint interagency task force (CJIATF)	The British civilian–military team that delivered the UK government's response, a £427 million wide-ranging package.
UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER)	Coordinated the relevant UN agencies, and to some extent donors and NGOs, and provided logistics, training, financial support and aircraft service.
World Health Organization (WHO)	Advisory role in the NERC, co-led the case management and surveillance pillars at both the national and district levels and, after January 2015, along with the CDC, provided most of the epidemiologists for the response.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)	A leading partner in the technical response, advising the NERC, conducting surveillance work, outbreak investigation, diagnostic testing, vaccine research, training and a host of other activities.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)	Key implementers of the response on the ground, involved in a wide variety of activities ranging from the manning of treatment and isolation facilities and provision of quarantine supplies to the management of burials and social mobilization activities.
glossary of terms
logistics	Functions that support emergency operations, including estimating equipment needs, procurement and distribution of supplies, transport of patients and samples and other response implementation support.
Operation Northern Push	A June 2015 NERC initiative to surge contact tracers and social mobilization into two problematic districts in the North of the country.
situation room	The hub of the NERC that gathered real-time information from the field through the DERCs and interpreted it in order to inform decision-making in the response.
social mobilization	Activities to raise public awareness through the delivery of public health messages and to engage communities in the effort to stop the spread of Ebola.
technical pillars	Structure around which the technical aspects, or interventions on the ground were organized and run. Responsible for providing technical guidance for the response.
UN cluster system	Coordination mechanism for UN humanitarian operations whereby response groups working on the same aspect are clustered together in sectors, such as shelter or health.
Western Area	A densely populated area of Sierra Leone that encompasses the capital, Freetown and its outskirts. It was an outbreak hotspot.