A quick, large-scale response to an Ebola outbreak can contain it and actually bend the curve to limit new cases, according to a new modeling tool released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Announced Sept. 23, the tool, EbolaResponse, allows for estimations of projected cases based on various response scenarios. Use of the tool can demonstrate how interventions can help slow and ultimately stop an Ebola epidemic.
“The EbolaResponse modeling tool is intended to help local governments and international responders generate short-term estimates of the Ebola situation in countries, districts, and villages,” the CDC said in a fact sheet on the new tool.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden
Speaking during a same-day press conference call, CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden said that the model shows something other models out there do not – that a surge in response “can break the back of the epidemic. … [I]f you get enough people effectively isolated, the epidemic can be stopped and, related to that, when you reach a high enough number [with isolation and treatment] … the number of cases plummets rapidly, almost as rapidly as the exponential rise we are seeing now.”
Dr. Frieden also noted the model’s cautionary tale: “For each month of delay, there is a big increase in the number of cases, and it gets much more difficult to control the epidemic.”
The CDC, in its latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, used the tool to estimate, based on various scenarios, the number of cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone, which offered a range of scenarios and put the number of cases at between 550,000 and 1.4 million by Jan. 20, 2015, but Dr. Frieden stressed that the number was generated a few weeks ago and is not based on the latest information that would bring those numbers down. The tool is available as a free download from the agency.
