Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could reach 20,000 cases without strong public health measures

NEW YORK, June 6, (AP): The Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could grow to 20,000 cases or more, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow the spread, according to a new analysis by US health officials. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a range of scenarios generated by computer models Friday, spanning from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000.

If accurate, a worst-case scenario could approach the worst Ebola outbreak in history, the West Africa epidemic in 2014-2016 - which resulted in more than 28,000 reported cases and more than 11,000 deaths. "Without strong public health interventions, the modeling work suggests an outbreak of that scale is possible,” said Dr. Satish Pillai, incident manager for the CDC’s Ebola response, in a briefing with reporters.

Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, said the modeling "affirms what we have worried about since the beginning: This outbreak is following dangerous trajectory” if more is not done to stop the spread of Ebola. But she cautioned it can be extremely difficult to predict how outbreaks will progress. "I wouldn’t read too much into the specific numbers.

It’s really hard to make an accurate projection when you have limited data,” she added. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that there have been about 400 confirmed cases, including 63 deaths. Experts say there likely others that haven't been diagnosed or reported. Viruses that cause Ebola disease spread through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood and semen.

There are no specific treatments or vaccines for the Bundibugyo virus at the heart of the current outbreak. The disease is often fatal. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency in May. Some experts believe infections may have been occurring in February, but health officials initially tested for a different kind of Ebola virus.

The outbreak response has been complicated by an armed conflict between Congo’s government and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, as well as attacks by the Islamic State-affiliated group the Allied Democratic Force. The violence has caused massive displacement of people living in the conflict areas, officials say. Earlier this week, Nuzzo said the risk to the United States seems low.

"I don’t think it’s a scenario that it’s going to come here and spread broadly,” she told reporters. The CDC echoed that assessment in an article released Friday. That's due in part to decisions but the US government to ban the entry of people without U.S. passports, as well as U.S. green-card holders who visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.

Also, people with U.S. passports who traveled to those countries are undergoing health screenings and being funneled into four receiving airports. CDC's modeling report attempts to project how things might play out, depending on different factors - including how many infections and deaths have already happened, and how successful responders are in quickly identifying and isolating infected people before they can spread the infection to others.