Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
Read more: Vox.com
No one knows exactly how bad West Africa's Ebola epidemic is
Updated by Julia Belluz on October 6, 2014
According to official estimates, there are 7,200 people in West Africa who have Ebola. But the real number is likely much, much higher.
"Under-reporting" has been a constant feature of the world's worst Ebola outbreak. Cases have gone missing, deaths are uncounted, and "there is widespread under-reporting of new cases," warns the World Health Organization.
The WHO has continually warned that even its current dire numbers don't reflect the full reality. The estimated 7,200 Ebola cases in West Africa could just be the tip of the iceberg. Here's a breakdown of why so many cases go under-reported.
Why so many Ebola cases go under-reported
To understand how an Ebola case could be missed, you need to understand what it takes to actually find and count a case, a sequence of events that need to unfold perfectly to add a disease or death to national and international tallies.
Lina Moses, a Tulane University epidemiologist who has been working with Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health on the surveillance effort, describes the process as "complicated" and "challenging."
No one knows exactly how bad West Africa's Ebola epidemic is
Updated by Julia Belluz on October 6, 2014
According to official estimates, there are 7,200 people in West Africa who have Ebola. But the real number is likely much, much higher.
"Under-reporting" has been a constant feature of the world's worst Ebola outbreak. Cases have gone missing, deaths are uncounted, and "there is widespread under-reporting of new cases," warns the World Health Organization.
The WHO has continually warned that even its current dire numbers don't reflect the full reality. The estimated 7,200 Ebola cases in West Africa could just be the tip of the iceberg. Here's a breakdown of why so many cases go under-reported.
Why so many Ebola cases go under-reported
To understand how an Ebola case could be missed, you need to understand what it takes to actually find and count a case, a sequence of events that need to unfold perfectly to add a disease or death to national and international tallies.
Lina Moses, a Tulane University epidemiologist who has been working with Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health on the surveillance effort, describes the process as "complicated" and "challenging."
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