faulker024

In a recent article entitled Estimating the reproduction number of Ebola virus (EBOV) during the 2014 outbreak in West Africa , Christian L. Althaus, a post-doctoral research fellow at Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern, provides an optimistic and unrealistic assessment of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. In the abstract, Althaus implies that the Ebola outbreaks in Guinea and Sierra Leone were under control by the end of May and July 2014, respectively. Elsewhere in the text he contradicts the abstract and states: "This results in a different decrease of the effective reproduction number, Re, after the outbreaks started in each country [ Guinea. Liberia, Sierra Leone ]. While Re dropped below unity in Guinea and Sierra Leone by end-August 2014, the model suggests that control interventions were not successful in reducing Re in Liberia." Based on the World Health Organization (WHO) comments that the number of Ebola cases are grossly und...

Presently, only four countries, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone (as depicted in red on the map below) have confirmed cases of Ebola. But the outbreak is rapidly becoming out of control with more than 2400 cases reported. Several weeks ago, on August 3, the director of the Center for Disease Control in the United States, was quoted as saying that Ebola is “out of control” ( link ) at that time. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged that they have underestimated the extent of this Ebola outbreak in Africa in a situation assessment identifying the many reasons why the current cases are underestimated. ( link ) The inability of the international health community to understand this outbreak is precisely because it is out of control in the West African nations. However this outbreak is more than an African problem. There is worldwide concern for this infectious disease. So far, no cases have yet been reported beyond the four African nations. The FluTrackers cr...