New computer model says Ebola in Liberia could end in June

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The new epidemic model developed by ecology professors at the University of Georgia provides the most realistic forecasts this side of Multivac. Or at least so its creators claim, citing that the tool not only accounts for features of the virus and its transmission, but also the measures being taken to stop it from spreading. All things considered, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia could end by June – provided that current hospitalization rates remain high and surveillance continues. The forecast is “a realistic possibility but not a foregone conclusion,” project leader John Drake said. Still, it’s better than the Nostradamus quatrain that retroactive clairvoyants will inevitable find – long after the fact – if the epidemic does end by that date, and which would probably go something like this:

“Shine on stars into endless night
Shine on harvest moon
Keep your souls and babies warm and tight
I’ll see you all in June”

Back to the science, Drake claims that their model is the first-ever to consider the most important factors – including where patients infected and where they are treated, hospital capacity, and adoption of safe burial practices – while ignoring the fluff. As far as firsts go, this is certainly the first model of 2015. Last year saw several predecessors such as a September 2014 CDC model which warned that the number of Ebola infections could surpass 500,000 by January if the effort to contain the outbreak weren’t substantially scaled up. The scientists hope their tool will boost international efforts to halt the epidemic by showing that they do indeed bear fruit.

Drake said that many of the models – including his – aim to assess the amount of new infections that a single infected individual can produce. However, in order to get a true-to-life scenario several other factors need to be accounted for, without making the process to complex either; after all they wouldn’t want to feed it a robot-destroying paradox. The goal of their model is “to be intermediate in complexity – it captures all the things we think to be most important and ignores the rest.” In a paper published in the journal PLOS Biology the researchers explain how they calibrated the model with information from previous Ebola outbreaks and then ran five distinct scenarios in the fall of 2014.

The worst case scenario was based on no increase in hospital beds and predicted about 13,000 cases by the end of the year. The best case scenario started from the premise that there would be approximately 1,400 more beds per 1,700 new cases, and predicted about 50,000 total cases. The model was then updated with data compiled up to the beginning of December 2014 – such as the fact that Liberia kept adding hospital beds. Assuming that the rate of hospitalization of 85% can be maintained, the tool predicts the Ebola outbreak in Liberia will be contained by June 2015. “What’s needed is to maintain the current level of vigilance and keep pressing forward as hard as we can,” Drake said. Got to love the Drake.

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New epidemic model says Ebola in Liberia ‘could end by June’.

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