A Model of the Ebola Epidemics in West Africa Incorporating Age of Infection

TL;DR

This paper presents a disease-age structured model for Ebola epidemics that incorporates incubation, infectiousness, and removal processes, demonstrating how early hospitalization mitigates outbreaks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Ebola epidemic model incorporating disease age, hospitalization, and removal dynamics, applied to Sierra Leone and Guinea data.

Findings

Early hospitalization reduces epidemic size

Disease age structure improves epidemic predictions

Model aligns with observed epidemic trends

Abstract

A model of an Ebola epidemic is developed with infected individuals structured according to disease age. The transmission of the infection is tracked by disease age through an initial incubation (exposed) phase, followed by an infectious phase with variable transmission infectiousness. The removal of infected individuals is dependent on disease age, with three types of removal rates: (1) removal due to hospitalization (isolation), (2) removal due to mortality separate from hospitalization, and (3) removal due to recovery separate from hospitalization. The model is applied to the Ebola epidemics in Sierra Leone and Guinea. Model simulations indicate that successive stages of increased and earlier hospitalization of cases have resulted in mitigation of the epidemics.