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 e

SUBMITTER: Cleaton JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4678106 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature