While the Ebola virus outbreak in the the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia continues, the W. Africa countries of Nigeria and Senegal appear to have the virus very much in control.

A recent article from FiveThirtyEight reported that the major advantage that these two countries had was the ability to detect the outbreak when it had affected only one known person, making it feasible to track all of those person’s contacts.

EPIBIO faculty member Dr. Andreas Handel commented in the piece:

Still, a country with the resources of the United States has many other advantages, said Andreas Handel, an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, in an email sent before the nurse’s diagnosis and flight were reported. “I’m fairly certain that surveillance and containment capacities in the U.S., Europe and other countries with more resources and better developed health systems will make any large-scale spread of Ebola very unlikely,” Handel said.

Read the entire article at FiveThirtyEight.

Posted October 15, 2014.