ABSTRACT
The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact tracing with quarantine and sanitary funeral practices must be implemented with utmost urgency in order to reverse the growth of the outbreak. Under status quo intervention, our projections indicate that the Ebola outbreak will continue to spread, generating a predicted 224 (95% CI: 134 – 358) cases daily in Liberia alone by December, highlighting the need for swift application of multifaceted control interventions.
Science:
EBOLA EPIDEMIOLOGY
Strategies for containing Ebola in West Africa
Abhishek Pandey1,*, Katherine E. Atkins1,*, Jan Medlock2, Natasha Wenzel1, Jeffrey P. Townsend3, James E. Childs4, Tolbert G. Nyenswah5, Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah1, Alison P. Galvani1,4,†
Tomorrow: Automaton
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