Note from the editors: Eurosurveillance--an authoritative information source on infectious diseases.

After a break over the festive season, the Eurosurveillance editors present the first issue of the journal in 2015. It features two rapid communications and a news item about Ebola virus disease (EVD), a disease which, since 2014, has caused worldwide concern. The EVD outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is the third event classified as a 'Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)' by the World Health Organization [1]. Since mid-2014, numerous healthcare workers (HCW), epidemiologists and other emergency specialists have volunteered to work, often under difficult circumstances and risking their health or even lives on the ground to stop Ebola where it is most needed. They deserve our highest respect for their efforts and work. While the outbreak has unfortunately not yet been controlled and suffering goes on in the affected countries, there have been success stories from Nigeria and Mali where concerted actions were able to limit and halt the spread of the disease [2,3]. In Nigeria this was possible due to a close collaboration between mainly the public health and medical sectors, and using structures already in place to fight polio. While the main burden of EVD is of course in West Africa, few cases have arisen outside the affected area through secondary transmission during healthcare for medically evacuated patients, or through individuals becoming symptomatic after having left West Africa [4,5]. One of the rapid communications in this issue describes the public health measures following the secondary Ebola transmission to an HCW in Spain in late 2014 such as contact tracing and monitoring of 232 individuals [6]. Another rapid communication presents an SMS-based system developed in Australia that should allow active tracing and monitoring of potentially exposed persons and require less resources than the traditional ways of monitoring [7]. The importance of the EVD outbreak matches the number of publications on the subject. A PubMed search using keywords [Guinea] OR [Liberia] OR [Sierra Leone] OR [Nigeria] OR [West Africa] OR [Western Africa] OR/ AND [Ebolavirus] OR [Haemorrhagic Fever, Ebola] OR [Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever] OR [ebolavirus*] OR [ebola] OR [evd] and limited to publications after 1 February 2014, retrieved 285 entries on 7 January 2015, many of them commentaries and editorials reflecting the situation, its challenges and potential solutions. Eurosurveillance has contributed with 13 articles published by the end of December 2014, mainly rapid communications as well aseditorials and letters. They are available from a dedicated …