Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
The worst-case scenario for Ebola
Updated by Julia Belluz on September 23, 2014, 9:50 a.m. ET
...
The best methods we have to contain Ebola are failing
Public health officials are terrified that one of the cornerstones of an Ebola response ? tracing the contacts of those infected ? can't keep pace with the epidemic.
Tracing the contacts of those infected has become increasingly difficult
In the past, trusty volunteers and public-health workers would follow all the people who had come into contact with an Ebola patient for 21 days (the virus' incubation period) to make sure that those people didn't develop any of the early flu-like symptoms of the disease. If anyone did, they would be put in quarantine to be monitored further and to ensure they didn't give the virus to anyone else.
This method worked extremely well. It helped to curb every previous known Ebola outbreak in history ? and it even seems to have worked in the small outbreaks this year in Senegal and Nigeria, which have just reported zero suspected cases.
But in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, which each have thousands of infected people, contact tracing becomes impossible. Consider this: the WHO estimates that every person in this region has at least ten contacts. Liberia already has over 3,000 cases of Ebola. That would be 30,000 potential contacts to follow-up. Imagine, if by the year's end, we see nearly 300,000 cases.
So the best method to curtail this untreatable disease is useless at the scale of the outbreak before us. And this keeps health professionals familiar with the disease up at night.
...
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6832023/ebola-virus-global-health-panic
Updated by Julia Belluz on September 23, 2014, 9:50 a.m. ET
...
The best methods we have to contain Ebola are failing
Public health officials are terrified that one of the cornerstones of an Ebola response ? tracing the contacts of those infected ? can't keep pace with the epidemic.
Tracing the contacts of those infected has become increasingly difficult
In the past, trusty volunteers and public-health workers would follow all the people who had come into contact with an Ebola patient for 21 days (the virus' incubation period) to make sure that those people didn't develop any of the early flu-like symptoms of the disease. If anyone did, they would be put in quarantine to be monitored further and to ensure they didn't give the virus to anyone else.
This method worked extremely well. It helped to curb every previous known Ebola outbreak in history ? and it even seems to have worked in the small outbreaks this year in Senegal and Nigeria, which have just reported zero suspected cases.
But in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, which each have thousands of infected people, contact tracing becomes impossible. Consider this: the WHO estimates that every person in this region has at least ten contacts. Liberia already has over 3,000 cases of Ebola. That would be 30,000 potential contacts to follow-up. Imagine, if by the year's end, we see nearly 300,000 cases.
So the best method to curtail this untreatable disease is useless at the scale of the outbreak before us. And this keeps health professionals familiar with the disease up at night.
...
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6832023/ebola-virus-global-health-panic