Nigeria Health New Insights About Ebola Virus Disease

[AlaskaDenise]

Nigeria Health New Insights About Ebola Virus Disease

A new insight into how the Ebola virus spreads has been provided from a new modeling study published in Annals of Internal Medicine (?Effect of Ebola Progression on Transmission and Control in Liberia?.) according to Digital Journal.....

They discovered that survivors tend to achieve peak viral load approximately four days after symptoms develop and then viral load declines. Those who survived were predicted to have a 32 percent probability of infecting at least one other individual during their infection period.

With non-survivors it was found that the viral load was 100-fold higher compared with survivors and that the level of virus infection did not decline once it had peaked. In terms of disease transmission, non-survivors had a 67 percent probability of transmitting Ebola to at least one other person.

The scientists hope that further study of these patterns will help to predict how easily the disease can spread within a population and they emphasize the importance of isolating anyone who is suspected of carrying Ebola.

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Re: Nigeria Health New Insights About Ebola Virus Disease

Full paper can be viewed here

Effect of Ebola Progression on Transmission and Control in Liberia

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1919873#Methods

Abstract

Background: The Ebola outbreak that is sweeping across West Africa is the largest, most volatile, and deadliest Ebola epidemic ever recorded. Liberia is the most profoundly affected country, with more than 3500 infections and 2000 deaths recorded in the past 3 months.

Objective: To evaluate the contribution of disease progression and case fatality to transmission and to examine the potential for targeted interventions to eliminate the disease.

Design: Stochastic transmission model that integrates epidemiologic and clinical data on incidence and case fatality, daily viral load among survivors and nonsurvivors evaluated on the basis of the 2000?2001 outbreak in Uganda, and primary data on contacts of patients with Ebola in Liberia.

Setting: Montserrado County Liberia, July to September 2014.

Measurements: Ebola incidence and case fatality records from 2014 Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

Results: The average number of secondary infections generated throughout the entire infectious period of a single infected case, R0, was estimated as 1.73 (95% CI, 1.66 to 1.83). There was substantial stratification between survivors (R0Survivors), for whom the estimate was 0.66 (CI, 0.10 to 1.69) and nonsurvivors (the R0Nonsurvivors), for whom the estimate was 2.36 (CI, 1.72 to 2.80). The nonsurvivors had the highest risk for transmitting the virus later in the course of disease progression. Consequently, the isolation of 75% of infected individuals in critical condition within 4 days from symptom onset has a high chance of eliminating the disease.

Limitations: Projections are based on the initial dynamics of the epidemic, which may change as the outbreak and interventions evolve.

Conclusion: These results underscore the importance of isolating the most severely ill patients with Ebola within the first few days of their symptomatic phase.

Primary Funding Source: National Institutes of Health.