The Ebola outbreak sweeping across countries in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 more months, much longer than anticipated, and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, scientists mapping its spread for the US government said.
“We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.
The time the model says it will take to control the epidemic and the number of cases it forecasts far exceed estimates by the WHO, which said last month that it hoped to control the outbreak within nine months and predicted 20,000 total cases by that time. The organization is sticking by its estimates, a WHO spokesman said on Friday.
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However, researchers at various US universities say that at the virus’ present rate of growth, there could easily be close to 20,000 cases in one month.
Some of the leading US epidemiologists have been creating computer models of the Ebola epidemic at the request of the US National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Defense.
What worries US health officials most is that the epidemic has begun to grow exponentially in Liberia.
The scientists who produced the models cautioned that their predictions were based on the virus’ current uncontrolled spread and said the picture could improve if public health efforts started to work. Because natural conditions could change, for better or for worse, the researchers also warned that their forecasts became shakier the farther into the future they went.
Lewis said that a group of scientists collaborating on Ebola modeling as part of a project called models of infectious disease agent study (MIDAS) had come to a consensus on the projected 12 to 18 month duration and high case count.
A MIDAS participant, Jeffrey Shaman, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, agreed.
“Ebola has a simple trajectory because it’s growing exponentially,” Shaman said.
The modeling estimates are based on the observed growth rate of cases and on factors like how many people each patient infects. The researchers use the past data to make projections.
Shaman’s research team created a model that estimated the number of cases through Oct. 12, with different predictions based on whether control of the epidemic stays about the same, improves or gets worse. If control stays the same, according to the model, the case count by Oct. 12 will be 18,406. If control improves, it will be 7,861. If control worsens, it will soar to 54,895.
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