A decade on the front line: what mobile data has taught us about responding to Ebola and other outbreaks

From West Africa in 2014 to the Bundibugyo outbreak in DRC and Uganda in 2026, GeoPoll has spent more than a decade collecting data inside disease outbreaks when other methods cannot reach affected communities. Here is what we have learned and what we offer to partners responding now.

On 15 May 2026, the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared its 17th Ebola outbreak. Within 48 hours, the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As of late May, more than 1,200 suspected and confirmed cases had been reported with over 260 deaths. The outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola strain for which no approved vaccine yet exists. Imported cases have been confirmed in Uganda, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

For GeoPoll, the news triggered an immediate question that has driven our work for the past twelve years: how do we collect reliable, representative data from communities that field teams cannot safely or easily reach, fast enough to inform a live response.

This article walks through GeoPoll’s published experience supporting responses to Ebola, COVID-19, cholera, and Mpox across Africa and Asia, and lays out what we offer partners now.

Where it began: West Africa, 2014

The 2014 to 2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak killed nearly 12,000 people across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It also became the moment that mobile data collection in humanitarian crises moved from promising idea to operational reality.

When the outbreak peaked, GeoPoll was finalising its SMS survey system in Liberia. As we documented in the Journal of Health Communication, that timing meant we could begin running surveys immediately. We did not have to build infrastructure from scratch in the middle of a crisis. The same is true today. Our platform, panel, and mobile network operator integrations are in place in the affected countries before the next outbreak begins.

What we did across the West Africa outbreak

In the years that followed, our SMS and CATI surveys in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea covered a range of programme questions. Several of these projects are documented in published case studies and peer-reviewed work:

• Food security tracking with the United Nations World Food Programme. Over three months in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, we collected indicators on food prices, wages, and household coping. The work adapted the reduced Coping Strategies Index for mobile delivery, with prior validation showing no significant difference between mobile and face-to-face collection. Case study.
• Market functionality monitoring for the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Panel-based SMS surveys with market traders in Sierra Leone and Liberia, tracking market sizes, operating costs, stock levels, and agricultural activity through ten rounds. Case study.
• Long-term economic impact surveys for the USAID Bureau for Africa and FHI360. Thirteen rounds of nationally stratified surveys in Liberia and Sierra Leone between January and June 2015, tracking income, employment, food prices, and schooling. Sample base of 1.8 million in Sierra Leone and 1.6 million in Liberia, with 1,000 completes per country per round. Case study.
• Health communications research with Johns Hopkins University in Liberia. SMS-based community dialogue and rumour tracking, supporting Ebola risk communication and community engagement. Documented in the academic literature.
• Community perceptions in Sierra Leone with Keystone Accountability. Assessing how the population viewed the international community’s response in real time.

Across the West Africa outbreak, GeoPoll reached more than 100,000 people. The methods worked because the people we surveyed already had access to mobile phones, our network operator integrations meant respondents incurred no cost to participate, and the SMS and voice modes did not require enumerators to enter quarantine zones or treatment areas.

What we learned

Three operational lessons from 2014 to 2016 still shape how we run surveys during outbreaks today:

• Keep surveys short. On SMS, response rates drop sharply beyond 12 to 15 questions. The constraint forces discipline on what we ask.
• Pre-code open-ended questions. 160-character limits and noisy environments mean structured response options outperform free text for most use cases.
• Always offer airtime credit on completion. Small incentives (we have typically used the local equivalent of about USD 0.50) significantly improve completion rates among low-income respondents.

Beyond West Africa: outbreaks in the DRC and the eastern corridor

Between 2018 and 2020, the DRC experienced two more large Ebola outbreaks in the eastern part of the country, primarily in North Kivu and Ituri. GeoPoll deployed mobile surveys during these outbreaks as well, focused on socio-economic impact and information flow. By the time we entered the COVID-19 era in 2020, we had effectively built a playbook for outbreak response work and applied it across an expanding set of geographies and health threats.

Our experience now spans the major health emergencies of the last decade:

• Ebola: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea (2014 to 2016) and the DRC (2018 to 2020)
• COVID-19: 30+ countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia
• Cholera: Zambia (2024) and other African geographies
• Mpox: DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic, and Kenya (2024)
• Other infectious disease and vaccine work: malaria, polio, measles, yellow fever, and routine immunisation studies across multiple African countries

COVID-19: when the playbook scaled

When COVID-19 reached sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, the methods we had refined for Ebola scaled up overnight. Between 2020 and 2022, GeoPoll ran self-funded and partner-funded research across more than 30 countries, covering economic impact, food security, vaccine acceptance, and risk communication. Findings from our November 2020 vaccine acceptance study across Cote d’Ivoire, the DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa were archived publicly in ICPSR and used by researchers and policy makers globally.

We continued tracking vaccine perceptions across multiple rounds. The April 2021 follow-up, reported on the GeoPoll blog, found that fewer than half of respondents (48 percent) felt they had been given enough trustworthy information about the vaccine, a finding that mirrored what we were seeing on the ground.

The COVID work cemented two principles we now apply by default in outbreak research:

• Multi-mode is non-negotiable. SMS reaches the broadest base but limits depth. CATI handles longer instruments and complex skip logic. Mobile web reaches smartphone-heavy segments. In-person fills gaps for offline populations. The best outbreak studies combine modes by design, not as a fallback.
• Trust matters more than reach. A representative sample of people who refuse to answer honestly is not a sample. We invest in respondent identity verification, plain-language consent, and call-centre training in local languages because trust at the moment of the interview drives data quality.

Mpox: turning prior experience into rapid mobilisation

When mpox began spreading through Central and Eastern Africa in 2024, GeoPoll moved into the response within weeks. As we wrote at the time, the parallels with earlier outbreaks were clear: a disease moving faster than traditional surveillance, vaccine hesitancy reshaping its trajectory, and demand from public health partners and pharmaceutical companies for granular, real-time data.

Through late 2024 we ran mpox vaccine acceptance and behaviour monitoring rounds across six African countries: DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic, and Kenya. The DRC mpox vaccine acceptance work has since been published in peer-reviewed medical literature and remains one of the largest mobile-based mpox studies on record from that period.

Cholera Zambia: a public-good data drop in the middle of a crisis

In early 2024, while Zambia was managing a cholera outbreak that had infected more than 21,000 people and caused over 700 deaths, GeoPoll ran a self-funded nationwide CATI survey to understand public awareness, water and sanitation access, and behaviour change. The findings were released as a public report on ReliefWeb with an interactive dashboard. The study used a stratified random sample of 400 respondents drawn from our Zambia panel, delivered in English, Bemba, and Nyanja from our Lusaka call centre.

The point of that work was not commercial. It was to demonstrate something that we believe matters more than any single study: in a crisis, the right response is to gather and share data quickly, even when there is no client paying for it.

What we offer partners responding to the 2026 outbreak

The capability that an organisation needs during an outbreak is not abstract. It is a short list of practical things, done quickly and well. Here is what we offer.

Mobile data collection across multiple modes

We run surveys through the channels respondents actually use. Most outbreak studies blend these by design:

• SMS surveys: Free-to-user via mobile network operator integrations. Best for broad reach, short instruments, and reaching low-income or rural populations. Used heavily in our Ebola, COVID, and cholera work.
• Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI): Live calls from our call centres in Nairobi, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, and Panama City. Best for longer instruments, complex skip logic, sensitive topics, and qualitative depth.
• Mobile web (link-based): Surveys delivered via WhatsApp, SMS link, or other distribution. Best for smartphone-heavy segments, image-based questions, and longer self-completion.
• GeoPoll App: Our smartphone application supports longer panels and incentivised tracking studies.
• In-person interviewing: Where offline populations or sensitive observations are needed, we deploy trained field teams. Used selectively in our outbreak work, primarily for qualitative and validation purposes.

Reach across affected geographies

GeoPoll has more than 5 million profiled panelists and access to over 250 million individuals across 64 countries. In the geographies most relevant to the current Ebola outbreak, our panel and infrastructure are operational today:

• Democratic Republic of the Congo: active panel and call-centre capacity. French, Lingala, Kiswahili, and Kinande supported.
• Uganda: active panel, English and major local languages.
• Adjacent at-risk countries: Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Kenya all have operational panels.

Speed when speed matters

Outbreak response cannot wait three months for fieldwork. Typical timelines for GeoPoll outbreak studies:

Activity	SMS / mobile web	CATI
Questionnaire design and review	2 to 3 days	2 to 3 days
Translation and localisation	1 to 2 days	1 to 2 days
Pilot and adjustment	1 to 2 days	1 to 2 days
Full field period	2 to 5 days	5 to 10 days
Initial findings	1 to 2 days after field	2 to 3 days after field
Total from kickoff to insight	1 to 2 weeks	2 to 3 weeks

Methodology that holds up to scrutiny

Outbreak research is read by epidemiologists, donors, and ethics committees. Our default methodology is designed to pass that scrutiny:

• CDC-aligned KAP frameworks. We design knowledge, attitudes, and practice instruments to be compatible with established disease-response frameworks.
• Stratified random sampling. By gender, age, and geography. We report margins of error and confidence intervals consistently.
• IRB experience. We have participated in institutional review board processes with universities and research partners. Our research follows ESOMAR and WAPOR ethical standards.
• Transparent reporting. Every study reports its sample size, margin of error, languages, mode, and field period. We do not hide methodology.

Senselytic for real-time qualitative analysis

Outbreaks generate a lot of qualitative signal: open-ended responses, call-centre notes, social listening, focus group transcripts. Senselytic, our AI-powered qualitative analysis tool, helps partners extract patterns from this material in hours instead of weeks. We used it to support analysis on multi-country COVID and mpox studies, and it is a core capability for the current Ebola response.

Two ways partners can engage with us

For the current Bundibugyo outbreak, we are offering two complementary engagement options. They can stand alone or run in parallel:

1. Commissioned research

Bespoke studies designed around a single partner’s questions. Suitable when you have specific decision needs, geographic priorities, or contractual reporting requirements. Examples we are equipped to run today include vaccine acceptance and intent, risk communication effectiveness, healthcare-seeking behaviour, rumour and misinformation surveillance, food security and economic impact in affected zones, and case investigation support.

2. Ebola Outbreak Omnibus Survey

A shared, nationally representative DRC survey where multiple organisations contribute custom questions and receive their own answers plus common themes. Costs are shared, fielding is faster, and results are comparable across participating organisations. Suitable for partners who need data but do not require a full standalone study. A parallel Uganda omnibus will run if there is sufficient interest.

Specification	DRC Omnibus
Sample size	1,000 completes, nationally representative
Margin of error	Approximately 3.1% at 95% confidence
Modes	Smartphone and WhatsApp lead, SMS and CATI fall back
Languages	French and Lingala lead, Kiswahili and Kinande added in eastern provinces
Field period	7 to 10 days
Custom questions per partner	Configurable, typically 5 to 10
Cost model	Shared across participants, per-question pricing

Get in Touch

Bundibugyo Ebola has no approved vaccine. The response will succeed or fail on case finding, contact tracing, risk communication, and community trust. All four depend on understanding what people in affected areas actually believe, know, fear, and need. That understanding cannot be assumed and it cannot be sampled from clinic registers alone. It has to be collected from people, in their own language, on a platform they already use.

GeoPoll has been collecting that kind of data through every major African outbreak of the last twelve years. The infrastructure is in place. The methodology is documented. The team is mobilised. We are ready to support partners working on this response, from public-good monitoring to bespoke programme evaluation, from rapid omnibus participation to long-term tracking studies.

In every outbreak we have worked on, the lesson has been the same: speed compounds. Decisions made on Day 7 with imperfect data are usually better than decisions made on Day 30 with perfect data. We are built to deliver on Day 7.

To learn more, discuss commissioned research, or to participate in the Ebola Outbreak Omnibus Survey, contact us.