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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Did the Kigadi Ebola outbreak threaten to become an (inter)national epidemic?



Map of the Uganda road network, created using the R programming language

We want to evaluate the seriousness of the threat posed by the recent ebola outbreak in western Uganda. The outbreak appeared in Kigadi, a small village in the Kibaale district. The disease was first confirmed by the government on 28 July. By 11 Aug, Medecins Sans Frontieres epidemiologist Dr Paul Roddy said the disease was under control, with no new deaths in August. It will be classified as contained if there are no confirmed cases by middle September. In total, 19 people died from the disease in the outbreak.
The disease spreads between people by contact with contaminated body fluids. Transmission, then, is slow (in comparison to disease with aerosol transmission, i.e. influenza). We reasoned that if the disease was to spread to other...
[link to www.scipirate.com]