Elsevier Provides Free Online Access to Medical Information for West African Countries Stricken with Ebola Outbreak

PHILADELPHIA, October 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Healthcare professionals in African countries can access Elsevier medical content, online and by mobile devices, through ClinicalKey and NIH's Emergency Access Initiative 

To support healthcare professionals in West Africa battling the Ebola outbreak, Elsevier will provide free access to its primary online clinical information and reference tool, ClinicalKey.

The African countries that are part of this free ClinicalKey access program include the four in West Africa currently affected - Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Guinea - plus other African countries where the outbreak has the potential to spread^[i], including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Angola, Togo, United Republic of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar and Malawi. All IPs originating from these countries will be granted free access for the next two months.

"Our thoughts and prayers during this crisis are for the people of West Africa, especially the healthcare workers there, from all over the world, who are working hard to contain this outbreak," said Jay Katzen, President, Elsevier Clinical Solutions. "As a provider of health, medical and patient care information, Elsevier is opening up the largest single reference site for clinical information, ClinicalKey, to frontline aid and medical workers to support their efforts during this challenging time."

ClinicalKey provides evidence-based clinical answers drawn from the single largest body of clinical content available, including Medline, 600+ journals, 1,100+ books, drug information, guidelines, and patient education. Its Smart Search enables ClinicalKey to understand clinical terms and thus discover the most relevant medical content and find related content often missed by other search engines. ClinicalKey is also now optimized for any mobile device.

In addition, Elsevier is one of many publishers contributing to the Emergency Access Initiative (EAI), a program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in partnership with the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. The NIH activated the program in August in response to the Ebola outbreak.

The EAI provides free access to full-text articles from over 650 biomedical serial titles and over 4,000 reference books and online databases to healthcare professionals and libraries affected by disasters.  The EAI serves as a temporary collection replacement and/or supplement for libraries that need to continue to serve medical staff and affiliated users in disaster areas. It is also intended for medical personnel responding to the specified disaster. For further details visit http://eai.nlm.nih.gov.

Access to Elsevier's ClinicalKey is IP-validated through West and Central Africa* for hospitals, institutional libraries and other healthcare entities supporting those battling the Ebola outbreak. Healthcare and disaster aid workers in West Africa will be able to access ClinicalKey by going to http://www.clinicalkey.com. Access will be valid for the next two months.

In addition to these efforts, one of Elsevier's top medical journals, The Lancet, has set up an Ebola Resource Center where healthcare professionals can read the latest updates, research, reviews, editorials, correspondence and commentary on the outbreak.

*African countries included in the free ClinicalKey access program: Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Angola, Togo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar and Malawi.

^[i]Oxford study predicts 15 more countries are at risk of Ebola exposure, The Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2014

About Elsevier 

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions - among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey - and publishes nearly 2,200 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and over 25,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works.

The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Media contact
Christopher Capot
Director, Corporate Relations
Elsevier
+1-917-704-5174
c.capot@elsevier.com