The nightmare Ebola scenario that keeps scientists up at night
by Julia Belluz
Vox.com
October 10, 2014
bola fear and conspiracy theories are spreading faster than the disease. But even scientists — who have thought very deeply about Ebola and pandemics — are beginning to worry.
What they fear, however, is slightly different from the zombies and airborne Ebola that keeps many of us up at night. I asked them about what it would take for Ebola to spread further in America and around the world. Here’s their worst-case scenario:
1) The Ebola outbreak in West Africa keeps growing
In order for Ebola to move around the world, the outbreak needs to continue to grow in West Africa. Cases there need to keep on their exponential ascent. The more people infected with Ebola at the source, the more likely they are to infect other people, and the more likely those people are to travel and spread the disease. It’s the mathematics of Ebola, and it’s scary.
For the situation to deteriorate in West Africa, efforts to address it need to fail. The unprecedented international response — led by the US — needs to be implemented too slowly, and needs to continue to lag the growth in cases.
And this is possible, at least for the foreseeable future, since the epidemic has already had such a long lead time before the international community intervened. “We have had more Ebola cases in the last two months than the entire history of the infection combined. It’s still in the growth phase,” says Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “The longer it continues in West Africa, the bigger a chance it’s going to get much more global.”
2) The virus finds new hosts in urban areas with weak health systems
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