West Africa Ebola Virus

Note: The following appeal is now closed. You can support our ongoing work by donating to the Canadian Red Cross.

Through the generous support of Canadians, as well as corporate and provincial government donations, over $5.2 million was raised to support this operation.

Ebola Outbreak

The first cases of the Ebola Virus were confirmed in Guinea in March of 2014. They would be the start of the largest Ebola outbreak in history, both in terms of number of people affected and geographical spread. This resulted in one of the most challenging global public health disasters in recent times.

Red Cross Response

Beginning in March 2014, National Red Cross Societies in affected countries – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – led the response alongside national health systems with support from many partner National Societies, including the Canadian Red Cross. This response included active surveillance, education and social mobilization, contact tracing, psychosocial support, safe and dignified burials and case management.

The Canadian Red Cross made a significant contribution to Ebola operations with 56 aid worker deployments to the frontline, across the affected countries. Through generous contributions from the Canadian public, as well as governmental agencies, the CRC was also able to provide important financial support to the International Federation of Red Cross in the region and the global coordination in Geneva.

Along with human resources, the CRC assisted the Red Cross Movement in the deployment of material resources to establish an Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Sierra Leone and provided funds to cover costs associate to the operation of the ETC during its early stages.

End of outbreak

In March 2016, the Ebola outbreak emergency was declared over, after more than two years of sustained effort.

In 2017, a study was released that suggested that Red Cross volunteers potentially averted more than 10,000 cases of Ebola during the outbreak through their safe and dignified burial activities.

Donor Updates


Updated: Jan 2019