The University of Washington's Elizabeth Halloran and the University of Florida's Ira Longini are coauthors on two pieces relating to Ebola that were published yesterday.
In a letter to Science on which Halloran was lead author, Ebola: Mobility Data, the authors called for more data "to gain a more complete picture of mobility and infer patterns of disease spread." Noting "the current West African Ebola outbreak is taking place in a region where mobility has changed considerably in recent years," the authors state that additional "data can be used in dynamic transmission models to provide case projections, help focus resources and interventions, and assess the success of interventions." They conclude,
Such data should not necessarily lead to travel restrictions, such as flight route cancellations and border closures, which hamper relief efforts. Rather, the information should be used to create more valid models of transmission, which can then be used to plan and evaluate potential interventions. Better quantification of the impact of potential interventions will be critical in the coming weeks as the outbreak continues to grow.
In an October 23 Eurosurveillance piece, Assessing the impact of travel restrictions on international spread of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic, the authors assess the impact of the existing travel restrictions on the international spread of the epidemic. The abstract states, "Traffic reductions are shown to delay by only a few weeks the risk that the outbreak extends to new countries," and the conclusion states,
This study indicates that travel bans are only delaying the further international spread of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for a limited time, at the risk of compromising connectivity to the region, mobilisation of resources to the affected area and sustained response operations, all actions of critical value for the immediate local control of EVD and for preventing its further geographical spread. Any decision making process on this issue must take into account complex cost-benefit analyses of travel bans.
Please see the paper for its informative discussion and figures.
Halloran and Longini also authored a September 12 Science Magazine Perspective, Emerging, evolving, and established infectious diseases and interventions, that mentions Ebola but is a broader discussions of interventions for infectious diseases.
The two researchers were also coauthors on a September 2 PLOS article, Assessing the International Spreading Risk Associated with the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak. The results state,
We model the short-term growth rate of the disease in the affected West African countries and estimate the basic reproductive number to be in the range 1.5 − 2.0 (interval at the 1/10 relative likelihood). We simulated the international spreading of the outbreak and provide the estimate for the probability of Ebola virus disease case importation in countries across the world. Results indicate that the short-term (3 and 6 weeks) probability of international spread outside the African region is small, but not negligible. The extension of the outbreak is more likely occurring in African countries, increasing the risk of international dissemination on a longer time scale.
This article gained some attention at a Congressional hearing, as reported in this ScienceInsider piece, Congressional Ebola debate invokes PLOS paper.
Longini has also been quoted in these two Science magazine articles: Estimating the Ebola epidemic (September 5) and Ebola vaccine trials raise ethical issues (October 17).
If you are a statistician working on Ebola-related research, please let me know. See also these calls:
- U.S. Government Ebola Grand Challenge, and more general administration response
- Per a 10/24 OSTP email, "if you have ideas or information you would like to share about your efforts and solutions in this area, please do so using the following email address: info@cdc.gov."
- NSF Dear Colleague Letter on the Ebola Virus, 10/16/14, inviting "researchers to use the Rapid Response Research (RAPID) funding mechanism, which allows
NSF to receive and review proposals having a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or access to
data, facilities or specialized equipment, as well as quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic
disasters and similar unanticipated events."
[Update: see also
- Why We Don’t Know The Real Ebola Mortality Rate In The U.S. Carl Bialik, FiveThirtyEight, November 13. Quotes Betz Halloran and Lance Waller.
- The Ebola epidemic is not subsiding any time soon, Salil Mehta, Significance, November 10, 2014.
- Ebola rising, Salil Mehta, Statistical Ideas blog, November, 2014]
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