Beyond Contact Tracing: Community-Based Early Detection for Ebola Response

TL;DR

This paper proposes community-based early detection and travel restriction strategies for Ebola, demonstrating through simulations that these policies can effectively control outbreaks even with moderate compliance levels.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-scale public health approach focusing on community-level screening and travel restrictions, which is novel compared to traditional contact tracing methods.

Findings

40% compliance can stop the outbreak in simulations.

50% compliance aligns with real-world case decline data.

Travel restrictions effectively reduce outbreak risks.

Abstract

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. We consider the development of multi-scale public health strategies and simulate policies for community-level response aimed at early screening of communities rather than individuals, as well as travel restrictions to prevent community cross-contamination. Our analysis shows the policies to be effective even at a relatively low level of compliance. In our simulations, 40% of individuals conforming to these policies is enough to stop the outbreak. Simulations with a 50% compliance rate are consistent with the case counts in Liberia during the period of rapid decline after mid September, 2014. We also find the travel restriction to be effective at reducing the risks associated with compliance substantially below the 40% level, shortening the outbreak and enabling efforts to be focused on affected areas. Our results suggest that the multi-scale approach can be used to further evolve public health strategy for defeating emerging epidemics.