SFI External Professor and Science Board Member Lauren Ancel Meyers breaks down the ebola outbreak, weighing its relative dangers and likelihood of runaway spread in the United States.
Estimates from the "tragic" outbreak in West Africa suggest that Ebola has a relatively low reproductive number of around 2, she says, meaning on average every infected person transmits the virus to two other people. Compared to other viruses, such as recent influenza viruses with reproductive numbers of 10 or higher, ebola is not particularly insidious from a transmission standpoint.
Combined with a relatively long incubation period of around 9 days, which gives public health authorities ample time to isolate people who have been in contact with people who are confirmed to have been infected, the mathematics suggest ebola can be contained…with one caveat, she says.
The proper containment strategies, accompanied by ample resources, are key to stopping the spread of ebola. In West Africa, authorities have not had the resources to effectively contain the outbreak. In today's world, which is highly interconnected due to air travel, it's likely ebola-infected individuals will appear in the U.S., and it's critical for U.S. authorities to act decisively to keep the disease contained.
Listen to her podcast interview on the Huffington Post (26 minutes, October 5, 2014)