The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an analysis Friday projecting that the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could grow to between 10,000 and more than 20,000 cases, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow transmission.
The CDC published a range of scenarios generated by computer models, spanning a low end of 10,000 cases to a worst-case projection exceeding 20,000. If realized, a worst-case scenario would approach the scale of the largest Ebola outbreak in history — the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic, 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.
Pillai’s comments underscored the urgency health officials are placing on containment efforts as the outbreak, centered in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, continues to spread despite ongoing response operations.
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.
The CDC’s projections come amid a deteriorating security environment in eastern Congo, where rebel violence has hampered access to affected communities and disrupted public health operations. Health workers have faced attacks on treatment centers, complicating efforts to isolate patients and trace contacts.
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency on May 16, as cases climbed past 900 and crossed into Uganda. MSI has previously reported on the cascade of challenges facing the response, including the impact of aid cuts and rebel violence on containment efforts in the region.