CNBC is reporting that Texas
Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas has stated that it is treating a
patient for the Ebola virus. The patient had recently traveled back
from Liberia where the disease is spreading nearly without control.
The person was not symptomatic during the flight. Four American
health care workers have been or are being treated for
Ebola.
Interestingly this case is within the time frame calculated
earlier by epidemiological models. As I reported
earlier this month…
A new study in the journal PLoS Currents
Outbreaks calculates that there is an 18
percent chance that a case of Ebola will arrive in the
United States by the end of this month. The researchers inputed
airline travel data and various outbreak scenarios into a computer
model to come up with probabilty figures for the arrival of Ebola
in 16 different countries. Is it time to panic? Absolutely not. The
researchers also report that the likelihood that the disease would
spread extensively in developed countries is tiny:
We observe that the expected value of the cluster size in
the case of international spread is always rather small (in all
countries mean<6; median<4). Large outbreak involving more
than 10 individuals although potentially possible can be considered
as very rare events (Detailed statistics per country are available
upon request). This numerical evidence is good news, as it points
out that effective management and isolation of cases is keeping the
number of EVD (Ebola) cases to deal with to a very limited number,
lowering the risk of losing control of the outbreak.In other words, the number of people likely to be infected
through contact with a person bringing Ebola to our shores maxes
out at around 10 individuals.
Stay calm and carry on.
My colleauge Emily Ekins noted back in August that a USA
Today poll reported that
40 percent of Americans thought an Ebola outbreak was likely in
a U.S. city.
Will update after the Centers for Disease Control press
conference later today.
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