During the Ebola Virus Disease 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa, SPRI Global remotely assessed the impact of the EVD crisis on children in the three most affected countries – Sierra Leone, Guinée and Liberia. Following extensive documentation reviews and published data analysis, the available information was made available in two original publications, which contributed to the sparse literature at that time. The impact of the EVD crisis on the children of the three countries was found to be threefold: trauma, stigma and loss, and policy reactions to the crisis keeping in mind lessons learned from the HIV/AIDs crisis were proposed.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported in March 2014, and rapidly became the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976. In fact, the epidemic killed five times more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined. More than 21 months on from the first confirmed case recorded on 23 March 2014, 11,315 people have been reported as having died from the disease in six countries; Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the US and Mali. The number of reported cases is approaching 30,000.