Statistical Analysis of Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Some West Africa Countries using S-I-R Model

The 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola virus outbreaks has brought to light the relevance of epidemic modeling at a time when many acute illnesses are no longer considered a credible threat to Public Health. The increasing connectivity between regions, countries, and continents makes it to understand the mechanisms that drive the spread of new acute illnesses and our ability to control them at the source more important now than ever before. Ebola virus in particular is deadly, poorly understood, and capable of causing a large-scale threat to Public Health. The general epidemiology of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is considered, analyzed statistically and modeled using the SIR model. The non-linear systems of differential equation formulated were solved numerically using Ms Excel spread sheet over time period of 120 days. For simplicity, Guinea as one of the three West African Countries that was hit severely by EVD in 2014 was used for this study. As stated earlier, modeling infectious disease dynamics demands that we investigate whether the disease spread could attain an epidemic level or it could be wiped out. The Ebola Virus Disease is spread largely through contacts between an infected person and a non-infected person. Infected people cannot be entirely separated from the rest of the large population. The separation can only be done when an infected person visits a health center.

Keywords: Ebola; West Africa; WHO; SIR model; Fatality