IJReview:
Let’s start with the bad news – the Ebola virus is real and it is rapidly outpacing efforts at this point to contain it. In fact, the number of cases of the deadly virus is thought to be doubling approximately every 3.3 weeks.
Source: Eurosurveillance.com. Based on WHO figures.
Officials at the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) have analyzed this exponential spread to provide a forecast of the current rate of effectiveness at combating the virus, along with what scientists have determined is the ideal rate necessary to actually contain the virus.
According to mathematical epidemiologist, Dr. Gerardo Chowell, the circulation of the virus will begin to subside once the reproduction rate falls below one. The reproduction rate is a scientific estimate of how many additional people will be infected from each individual that contracts the virus.
WaPo put the transmission rate and how it needs to be contained in context, based on CDC numbers:
Dr. Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), proposed that one way to lower the reproduction rate to a manageable level is to ensure that at least 70% of Ebola victim burials are conducted safely, and at least 70% of infected individuals get treatment within 60 days.
Sure, this doesn’t seem like a big deal in the U.S., but due to geography, poverty and local customs, this is quite the task in West Africa. As of Wednesday, in the three countries alone, there have been a reported 8,033 confirmed or suspected cases and 3,865 deaths.
Unfortunately, many health officials have estimated a devastatingly exponential spread by taking into account the high number of assumed cases that have gone unreported.
Although, it is unlikely that we will ever know the accuracy of these predictions, it is undeniable that there is currently an overwhelming lack of basic resources needed to combat the virus, such as latex gloves and hospital beds.
Guinea: Muslim 85%, Christian 8%, indigenous beliefs 7%
Sierra Leone: Muslim 60%, Christian 10%, indigenous beliefs 30%
Liberia (founded by ex-American slaves) : Christian 85.6%, Muslim 12.2%, Traditional 0.6%, other 0.2%, none 1.4%
Obama is helping Liberia, not the other affected nations.
But Liberia is the last of these countries to start getting ebola.
In Guinea 8 health workers trying to clean a contaminated village were murdered by superstitious people.
You look at that 2nd graph and see that lying is becoming part and parcel of life with ebola in Guinea.
Otherwise why would they have a few days of zero new cases?
Lying to authorities and thinking you and your little village can deal with it is Guinea’s recipe for failure.
As for Sierra Leone, there was only one province without ebola last I read.
Authorities are giving up.
Rumors run rampant:
In September, an article published in the Daily Observer, a major newspaper, called the Ebola virus a “genetically modified organism” that was tested on Africans by aid agencies at the behest of the western governments.
Race. Whites get cured, blacks die.
All three countries have people who believe in touching the dead at burial.
Trying to stop that, as ebola stays infectious long after the human carrying it is dead, has been a losing battle.
http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/popn-dynamics_exponential-growth/page15.htm
Shows that viruses start out growing exponentially if there is no immunization available.