Map: Geographic Distribution of Ebola Cases in West Africa, mid-August 2014

Laidback Al · Aug 20, 2014

The current Ebola outbreak in Africa has now grown to more than 2200 cases from four countries, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. (link) The map below shows the geographic distribution of Ebola cases within Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in West Africa based on recent reports. See map notes.

Map notes and sources:
Counts of Ebola cases (red numbers) are presented as totals for the administrative units as reported by the country agencies. The area of the circle depicts the relative number of reported cases in that general area.

Guinea: Data is current through August 6, 2014
http://www.ambafrance-gn.org/Ebola-point-de-situation-au-06

Liberia: Data is current through August 17, 2014
http://www.mohsw.gov.lr/documents/Liberia%20Ebola%20SitRep%2095%20Aug%2018,%202014.pdf

Sierra Leone: Data is current through August 15, 2014
http://health.gov.sl/?page_id=583

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Emily · Aug 20, 2014

Re: Map: Geographic Distribution of Ebola Cases in West Africa, mid-August 2014

Thanks, Al!

Sharky · Aug 20, 2014

Re: Map: Geographic Distribution of Ebola Cases in West Africa, mid-August 2014

CDC also publishes a map of the outbreak, although the distribution looks considerably different than the one in this thread.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resources/distribution-map-guinea-outbreak.html

Laidback Al · Aug 21, 2014

Re: Map: Geographic Distribution of Ebola Cases in West Africa, mid-August 2014

Sharky said:
CDC also publishes a map of the outbreak, although the distribution looks considerably different than the one in this thread.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resources/distribution-map-guinea-outbreak.html

Sharky ?

Different graphics and maps can emphasize different things and still use the same data. Confusing the situation is that as this Ebola outbreak continues to grow, there are reporting discrepancies between various local and international public health agencies. Sometimes these discrepancies are differences in enumeration and sometimes they results from time lags in reporting data.

The map in post 1 emphasizes the number of cases reported from each county or district in each of the three countries. The centroid of the country or district is the focal point for plotting these numbers. This provides a perspective on the clustering of cases in the region. Of course, the data used was from 5 to 13 days old as noted in the map notes. There are many more cases today from these three countries.

In contrast, the CDC map emphasizes the areal extent of infections within each of these countries by coloring administrative units from which cases were reported. The CDC map does not indicate whether a county or district has one case or 400 cases. The CDC map does identify the locations of Ebola treatment centers and administrative areas that are believed by the CDC to no longer have active transmission of Ebola. Because the creator of the CDC map (Elizabeth Ervin) does not identify the details of the source data it is hard to evaluate the map.

In the map I prepared, I used current source data from the official country reports as noted in the map notes. The CDC?s map identifies several counties and district with Ebola cases that are not included in the official data I used to prepare the map. This is an unresolved discrepancy between the CDC and the data sources I used.

I have created another map below from the data used in the map in post 1 to show to show the areal extent of infections in each of the three countries by county or district. By changing the emphasis of my map to the areal extent of the infections, you can see that the CDC map and my map below are not that different.

Ebola outbreak colored counties 20140820.jpg

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Map: Geographic Distribution of Ebola Cases in West Africa, mid-August 2014

Laidback Al

Well-known member

Emily

Editor, Senior Moderator

Sharky

Well-known member

Laidback Al

Well-known member