Our next Ebola Modeling Coordination Group conference call will be January 24, 2020 from 10AM - 11AM ET. Find notes from previous calls here.
OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data: Fighting Rumors to Fight Ebola (09-27-2019)
"Misinformation, mistrust of outsiders and conspiracy theories have spread quickly across Ebola affected areas of DRC. In order to respond to community resistance and improve the response based on people’s concerns, an innovative community feedback system was launched by the IFRC. The IFRC understood from experience that Ebola provokes fear in communities due to the severity of the symptoms, misunderstanding of the causes, the high number of deaths and control measures that are often perceived as intrusive and interfering with local social, cultural and religious practices." Read more about this here.
NIAID's Ongoing Ebola Efforts (09-05-2019)
NIAID has put together a summary of their current ebola efforts, including news from the Ebola Treatment Study, remote technical assistance in using the GeneXpert assay, and their current ongoing clinical trials. This information can be found here: NIAID's Ongoing Ebola Efforts in Congo, Elsewhere
Ebola data curation
The MIDAS Coordination Center is working with Dr. Bryan Lewis at the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative to curate Ebola situation reports released by DRC authorities and WHO from PDF into csv files. Curated information will be posted in this repository when allowed by the source. If you are aware of ongoing data entry or curation efforts, let us know via [email protected], or via an issue on this repository, to avoid duplication of work. If you are aware of useful data sources that should be curated, also let us know.
Ebola forecasting challenge - assessing interest
Is there interest in a forecasting challenge, or a formal model comparison, in the context of the on-going Ebola outbreak in DRC? While there has been a prior Ebola forecasting challenge mirrored after the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa, which some of you have participated in, it was conducted after the end of the outbreak rather than in real-time. Further, the on-going DRC outbreak is unique in that it involves a substantial vaccine response, while at the same time interventions are perturbed by violence and civil unrest. Questions of interest for a new challenge/model comparison in the context of DRC could include:
predictions of regional incidences, informed by strength of interventions and proxies for violence (some indicators of civil unrest in DRC are available)
comparison of probabilities of spatial diffusion/risk maps
evaluation of the impact of interventions
Would some of you already working on this outbreak have the bandwidth to run additional estimates/predictions for a multi-model comparison? If there is any interest in taking this further, or comments, please reach out to one of the coordinators. One would have to agree on common datasets, targets, and timeline. The implementation science modeling coordination group & NIH could offer some support for data compilation and coordination. If there was interest, one or more workshops could be organized once the challenge is underway to share results and identify data and modeling gaps for future outbreaks.
We have listed links to relevant Ebola-related datasets on this wiki page. Non-public data will be added to a private Github repository. To get access to the private repository, please contact one of the coordinators or email [email protected].
We have listed links to relevant Ebola-related papers on this wiki page. Non-public research findings will be added to a private Github repository. To get access to the private repository, please contact one of the coordinators or email [email protected].
The ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo was recently declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization, underscoring the complex and challenging nature of the outbreak. During past outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, modeling coordination calls helped both modelers and public health partners to improve the utility of modeling and analytics in supporting public health decision making. The purpose of this meeting series is to resume those modeling coordination calls to support the DRC response.
This repository will be used by the Ebola Interest Group to share relevant information, files, and announcements that can be publicly shared and used. The Ebola Interest Group organizes a monthly video call where infectious disease modelers will update the group on their Ebola-related research and where public health agencies and other stakeholders can raise important questions to explore. Coordinated communication between scientists and public health stakeholders will enable a more efficient modeling process and more effective implementation of research findings into public health practice.
- Connect modelers and decision makers to ensure that models and analytics are available to support the response;
- Identify the most important and timely public health questions that modelers can help address;
- Share the latest modeling results with academic colleagues and public health partners;
- Reduce duplication of efforts (including potential sharing of computational code);
- Identify and share relevant publicly-available resources like datasets (e.g case count data, mobility data, demographic data, vaccine coverage).
In addition to this public repository, we also created a private Github repository for Ebola-related modeling research that can be used by members to share information internally within the group only. To get access to the private repository, please contact one of the coordinators or email [email protected].
The Ebola interest group has also created a Slack channel that is open for any interested scientists or practitioner:
We will use the Wiki of this repository to post project updates and announcements, including information about the monthly video calls.
The Ebola Interest Group is coordinated by Dr. Caitlin Rivers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ([email protected]), Dr. Simon Polett at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research ([email protected]), Dr. Cécile Viboud at the NIH Fogarty International Center ([email protected]), and Dr. Wilbert van Panhuis at the University of Pittsburgh and MIDAS Coordination Center ([email protected]).
Participation in the Ebola Interest Group is open to all interested scientists and practitioners. To participate, please email one of the coordinators or email [email protected].
Participation and use of model output does not imply endorsement of any agency or institution and the accuracy of any model output is not guaranteed. Any discussion and modeling results are strictly for the internal discussion of this working group. Any dissemination of modeling results must be explicitly permitted by the presenting team.