This research will evaluate the success of various pharmaceutical and public health strategies in the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak in order to most effectively control and reduce the spread of disease. The investigators will develop a mathematical model that considers variability in a person?s infectiousness, the variation in transmission that occurs in a hospital or community setting, as well as the differences in transmission due to geography and spatial variation. This proposed tool will utilize current data from the outbreak in West Africa to accurately reflect the on-the-ground situation. Consequently, results from this research will provide immediately relevant and real-time information.
The investigators are utilizing contact tracing data collected by the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. This dataset of 1360 cases and 7400 traced contacts from the current outbreak will be used to parameterize the model. The data will provide information on individual behavior changes in response to disease spread, between-community movement and self-quarantining measures. Pharmaceutical data including experimental vaccines, as well as community based antiviral therapies such as ZMapp and favipiravir will be evaluated in the model. The following non-pharmaceutical public health interventions will be evaluated in the model: quantity of public health personnel and ambulance services, magnitude of treatment center capacity, and the allocation and efficacy of household protective kits. This tool will offer important information to public health professionals to assist them in making critical decisions on resource allocation in order to maximize impact and public health outcomes.
