Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based on Internet News Reports

Julie M. Cleaton; Cecile Viboud; Lone Simonsen; Ana M. Hurtado; Gerardo Chowell

doi:10.1093/cid/civ748

Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based on Internet News Reports

Julie M. Cleaton, Cecile Viboud, Lone Simonsen, Ana M. Hurtado, Gerardo Chowell

Global Health Section

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background.Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here, we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak. Methods.Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) ranging in size from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Results.The majority of reported exposures stemmed from contact with family members (57.3%) followed by hospitals (18.2%) and funerals (12.7%). Our data indicate that funeral exposure was significantly more frequent in Sierra Leone (27.3%) followed by Guinea (18.2%) and Liberia (1.8%; χ² test; P <. 0001). Funeral exposure was the dominant route of transmission until April 2014 (60%) and was replaced with hospital exposure in June 2014-July 2014 (70%), both of which declined after interventions were put in place. The mean reproduction number of the outbreak was 2.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8, 2.7). The case fatality rate was estimated at 74.4% (95% CI, 68.3, 79.8). Conclusions.Overall, our findings based on news reports are in close agreement with those derived from traditional epidemiological surveillance data and with those reported for prior outbreaks. Our findings support the use of real-time information from trustworthy news reports to provide timely estimates of key epidemiological parameters that may be hard to ascertain otherwise.

Original language	English
Journal	Clinical Infectious Diseases
Volume	62
Issue number	1
Pages (from-to)	24-31
Number of pages	8
ISSN	1058-4838
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/civ748
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2016

Keywords

Burial
Disease Notification
Disease Outbreaks
Female
Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola
Hospitalization
Humans
Internet
Male
Mass Media
Retrospective Studies
Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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title = "Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based on Internet News Reports",

abstract = "Background.Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here, we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak. Methods.Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) ranging in size from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Results.The majority of reported exposures stemmed from contact with family members (57.3%) followed by hospitals (18.2%) and funerals (12.7%). Our data indicate that funeral exposure was significantly more frequent in Sierra Leone (27.3%) followed by Guinea (18.2%) and Liberia (1.8%; χ2 test; P <. 0001). Funeral exposure was the dominant route of transmission until April 2014 (60%) and was replaced with hospital exposure in June 2014-July 2014 (70%), both of which declined after interventions were put in place. The mean reproduction number of the outbreak was 2.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8, 2.7). The case fatality rate was estimated at 74.4% (95% CI, 68.3, 79.8). Conclusions.Overall, our findings based on news reports are in close agreement with those derived from traditional epidemiological surveillance data and with those reported for prior outbreaks. Our findings support the use of real-time information from trustworthy news reports to provide timely estimates of key epidemiological parameters that may be hard to ascertain otherwise.",

keywords = "Burial, Disease Notification, Disease Outbreaks, Female, Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola, Hospitalization, Humans, Internet, Male, Mass Media, Retrospective Studies, Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.",

author = "Cleaton, {Julie M.} and Cecile Viboud and Lone Simonsen and Hurtado, {Ana M.} and Gerardo Chowell",

note = "Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.",

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doi = "10.1093/cid/civ748",

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AU - Cleaton, Julie M.

AU - Viboud, Cecile

AU - Simonsen, Lone

AU - Hurtado, Ana M.

AU - Chowell, Gerardo

N1 - Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

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N2 - Background.Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here, we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak. Methods.Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) ranging in size from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Results.The majority of reported exposures stemmed from contact with family members (57.3%) followed by hospitals (18.2%) and funerals (12.7%). Our data indicate that funeral exposure was significantly more frequent in Sierra Leone (27.3%) followed by Guinea (18.2%) and Liberia (1.8%; χ2 test; P <. 0001). Funeral exposure was the dominant route of transmission until April 2014 (60%) and was replaced with hospital exposure in June 2014-July 2014 (70%), both of which declined after interventions were put in place. The mean reproduction number of the outbreak was 2.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8, 2.7). The case fatality rate was estimated at 74.4% (95% CI, 68.3, 79.8). Conclusions.Overall, our findings based on news reports are in close agreement with those derived from traditional epidemiological surveillance data and with those reported for prior outbreaks. Our findings support the use of real-time information from trustworthy news reports to provide timely estimates of key epidemiological parameters that may be hard to ascertain otherwise.

AB - Background.Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here, we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak. Methods.Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) ranging in size from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Results.The majority of reported exposures stemmed from contact with family members (57.3%) followed by hospitals (18.2%) and funerals (12.7%). Our data indicate that funeral exposure was significantly more frequent in Sierra Leone (27.3%) followed by Guinea (18.2%) and Liberia (1.8%; χ2 test; P <. 0001). Funeral exposure was the dominant route of transmission until April 2014 (60%) and was replaced with hospital exposure in June 2014-July 2014 (70%), both of which declined after interventions were put in place. The mean reproduction number of the outbreak was 2.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8, 2.7). The case fatality rate was estimated at 74.4% (95% CI, 68.3, 79.8). Conclusions.Overall, our findings based on news reports are in close agreement with those derived from traditional epidemiological surveillance data and with those reported for prior outbreaks. Our findings support the use of real-time information from trustworthy news reports to provide timely estimates of key epidemiological parameters that may be hard to ascertain otherwise.

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KW - Hospitalization

KW - Humans

KW - Internet

KW - Male

KW - Mass Media

KW - Retrospective Studies

KW - Journal Article

KW - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

KW - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

KW - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

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DO - 10.1093/cid/civ748

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C2 - 26338786

SN - 1058-4838

VL - 62

SP - 24

EP - 31

JO - Clinical Infectious Diseases

JF - Clinical Infectious Diseases

IS - 1

ER -

Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based on Internet News Reports

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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