Thursday, October 23, 2014

the ebola: flying the friendly skies


WSJ | While a number of researchers are modeling the spread of Ebola in West African countries besieged by the deadly virus, a group led by Alessandro Vespignani at Boston’s Northeastern University has used air traffic connections to explore how the disease might spread to the rest of the world.
The study, published last month in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks, simulated the number of passengers traveling daily from West Africa to other parts of the world in an effort to quantify the risk of the disease spreading Ebola internationally.
The short-term probability of the virus spreading to countries outside of Africa, the researchers concluded, is small; however, if the current outbreak isn’t contained, the chances of it spreading internationally will increase.

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