http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/s...nreported-than-thought-study-finds-.html?_r=0
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The researchers [led by epidemiologists from the Yale School of Public Health] said they had too little data to predict how many West Africans could eventually be infected, but enough to show that the dire predictions were inaccurate.
[...]
By looking at virus samples gathered in Sierra Leone and contract-tracing data from Liberia, the scientists working on the new study estimated that about 70 percent of cases in West Africa go unreported. That is far fewer than earlier estimates, which assumed that up to 250 percent did.
In practical terms, said Jeffrey Townsend, a Yale biostatistician and the study?s lead author, that means that for every 100 known cases, there are 120 actual ones, rather than 350 as in the earlier estimates.
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Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech and lead author of a study released on Sept. 11 that forecast there could be hundreds of thousands of infections, said he respected the new study?s authors and their analysis. But he contended that assuming only 120 actual cases for every 100 known ones was ?a little too optimistic.?
Epidemics surge and wane and the accuracy of case counts falls during surges, Dr. Lewis said, so extrapolating an estimate from one month?s data to an entire outbreak was ?not legitimate.?
Dr. Townsend agreed, saying: ?This is a small light on a small part of the outbreak. We need more data.?
[...]
[...]
The researchers [led by epidemiologists from the Yale School of Public Health] said they had too little data to predict how many West Africans could eventually be infected, but enough to show that the dire predictions were inaccurate.
[...]
By looking at virus samples gathered in Sierra Leone and contract-tracing data from Liberia, the scientists working on the new study estimated that about 70 percent of cases in West Africa go unreported. That is far fewer than earlier estimates, which assumed that up to 250 percent did.
In practical terms, said Jeffrey Townsend, a Yale biostatistician and the study?s lead author, that means that for every 100 known cases, there are 120 actual ones, rather than 350 as in the earlier estimates.
[...]
Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech and lead author of a study released on Sept. 11 that forecast there could be hundreds of thousands of infections, said he respected the new study?s authors and their analysis. But he contended that assuming only 120 actual cases for every 100 known ones was ?a little too optimistic.?
Epidemics surge and wane and the accuracy of case counts falls during surges, Dr. Lewis said, so extrapolating an estimate from one month?s data to an entire outbreak was ?not legitimate.?
Dr. Townsend agreed, saying: ?This is a small light on a small part of the outbreak. We need more data.?
[...]