 |
 |
Oh and the Wiki page stats have not changed for a week http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak more specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak#mediaviewer/Fil e:Diseased_Ebola_2014.png -----Original Message----- From: GP-UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Julian Bradley Sent: 27 August 2014 22:44 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Ebola update The silence from WHO about Ebola stats is almost deafening. Five days since the last stats when they had been appearing every 2 or 3. Interesting contradictions from Nigeria - "it's all under control" yesterday(ish), and then schools to remain closed until mid-October today! CNN reports 27/8/14 "It's even worse than I'd feared," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday of the Ebola outbreak rampaging through West Africa. "Every day this outbreak goes on, it increases the risk for another export to another country." What's happening in the Congo may or may not be related - but surely adds to the pressure on international organizations and governments. I was stunned to see single use protective clothing being washed and re-used at this stage in the outbreak. There are new shipments going in but such procedures do explain why so many health care workers are getting ill and dying A logarithmic plot of the WHO data up to 20/8/14, simply using the totals for all countries combined, and using 7 day rolling averages of new cases seems to show about 2 months of increasing numbers that rather vaguely approximates to a 10 fold increase. IF that data is anything like correct (unlikely) and nothing changes (unlikely) then around end of October we'd be seeing around 4500 - 5000 new cases per week, and around Xmas around 45000 - 50000 new cases per week. It seems reasonable that, with determination, an outbreak infecting 450 or so people a week can be controlled. I personally struggle to see what control measures are likely to be effective if there's not a turn around in the next 8 weeks or so - in which case are we looking at an infection that will burn itself out after wreaking what havoc it will? In that situation it's hard to see that people won't flee, and potentially spread the virus as they do that. I hope there's some serious planning going on and some priority and resource being given to controlling the situation now while control is perhaps, just, possible. J