Beyond contact tracing: Community-based early detection for Ebola response

This study simulated policies for community-level response aimed at early screening all members of a community, as well as implementing travel restrictions to prevent inter-community transmission during outbreaks such as the Ebola 2014-2016 epidemic in West-Africa.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa raised many questions about the control of infectious disease in an increasingly connected global society. Limited availability of contact information made contact tracing difficult or impractical in combating the outbreak. However, a multi-scale approach can be used to further evolve public health strategy for defeating emerging epidemics.

The analysis shows that a policy of community-based early detection of infected cases can be effective without relying on information about infected individual's contact networks; 40% of individuals conforming to this policy is enough to stop the outbreak. It was also found that travel restriction is effective at reducing risks, shortening the outbreak and enabling efforts to be focused on affected areas.

PLoS Outbreaks, May 2016. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic licence.