Unlike the Presidential Unit Citations (PUC) awarded by the other six Uniformed Services of the United States, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps version was not established through an Executive Order, but by “Presidential Citation,” i.e., an announcement by President Barack Obama that he was awarding the Corps a Presidential Unit Citation. The design of the USPHS PUC was approved by The Institute of Heraldry in August 2015 and the award was presented to the Commissioned Corps on 24 September 2015.
All members of the Commissioned Corps who served satisfactorily on active duty for any period between 9 September 2014 and 1 May 2015 are authorized to wear the ribbon. The citation accompanying the ribbon notes the award is to recognize the Corps’ “extraordinary courage and the highest level of performance in action throughout the United States Government’s response to the Ebola outbreak.”
Earlier in 2015, the USPHS Commissioned Corps created the
Ebola Campaign ribbon and the
USPHS Expeditionary Attachment to recognize Corps members' deployments to fight against the deadly outbreak.