Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers.
The preparedness of health systems to detect, treat, and prevent onward transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is central to mitigating future outbreaks. Early detection of outbreaks is critical to timely response, but estimating detection rates is difficult because unreported spillover events an...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:8d4dc27205e24780bd0abbe14dce1d0c 2023-05-15T15:10:58+02:00 Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. Emma E Glennon Freya L Jephcott Olivier Restif James L N Wood 2019-06-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/article/8d4dc27205e24780bd0abbe14dce1d0c EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/article/8d4dc27205e24780bd0abbe14dce1d0c PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 13, Iss 6, p e0007428 (2019) Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 article 2019 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 2022-12-31T07:46:37Z The preparedness of health systems to detect, treat, and prevent onward transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is central to mitigating future outbreaks. Early detection of outbreaks is critical to timely response, but estimating detection rates is difficult because unreported spillover events and outbreaks do not generate data. Using three independent datasets available on the distributions of secondary infections during EVD outbreaks across West Africa, in a single district (Western Area) of Sierra Leone, and in the city of Conakry, Guinea, we simulated realistic outbreak size distributions and compared them to reported outbreak sizes. These three empirical distributions lead to estimates for the proportion of detected spillover events and small outbreaks of 26% (range 8-40%, based on the full outbreak data), 48% (range 39-62%, based on the Sierra Leone data), and 17% (range 11-24%, based on the Guinea data). We conclude that at least half of all spillover events have failed to be reported since EVD was first recognized. We also estimate the probability of detecting outbreaks of different sizes, which is likely less than 10% for single-case spillover events. Comparing models of the observation process also suggests the probability of detecting an outbreak is not simply the cumulative probability of independently detecting any one individual. Rather, we find that any individual's probability of detection is highly dependent upon the size of the cluster of cases. These findings highlight the importance of primary health care and local case management to detect and contain undetected early stage outbreaks at source. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 13 6 e0007428 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
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Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Emma E Glennon Freya L Jephcott Olivier Restif James L N Wood Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
topic_facet |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
description |
The preparedness of health systems to detect, treat, and prevent onward transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is central to mitigating future outbreaks. Early detection of outbreaks is critical to timely response, but estimating detection rates is difficult because unreported spillover events and outbreaks do not generate data. Using three independent datasets available on the distributions of secondary infections during EVD outbreaks across West Africa, in a single district (Western Area) of Sierra Leone, and in the city of Conakry, Guinea, we simulated realistic outbreak size distributions and compared them to reported outbreak sizes. These three empirical distributions lead to estimates for the proportion of detected spillover events and small outbreaks of 26% (range 8-40%, based on the full outbreak data), 48% (range 39-62%, based on the Sierra Leone data), and 17% (range 11-24%, based on the Guinea data). We conclude that at least half of all spillover events have failed to be reported since EVD was first recognized. We also estimate the probability of detecting outbreaks of different sizes, which is likely less than 10% for single-case spillover events. Comparing models of the observation process also suggests the probability of detecting an outbreak is not simply the cumulative probability of independently detecting any one individual. Rather, we find that any individual's probability of detection is highly dependent upon the size of the cluster of cases. These findings highlight the importance of primary health care and local case management to detect and contain undetected early stage outbreaks at source. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Emma E Glennon Freya L Jephcott Olivier Restif James L N Wood |
author_facet |
Emma E Glennon Freya L Jephcott Olivier Restif James L N Wood |
author_sort |
Emma E Glennon |
title |
Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
title_short |
Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
title_full |
Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
title_fullStr |
Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers. |
title_sort |
estimating undetected ebola spillovers. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/article/8d4dc27205e24780bd0abbe14dce1d0c |
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Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 13, Iss 6, p e0007428 (2019) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 https://doaj.org/article/8d4dc27205e24780bd0abbe14dce1d0c |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007428 |
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PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases |
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13 |
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6 |
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e0007428 |
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