Maimuna Majumder
speaker
41 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2014
last heard Aug 2014
Maimuna Majumder’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
That 90% figure actually comes from one outbreak of Ebola, which took place in the Congo between 2002 and 2003.
So it's the highest rate we've ever seen.
We've also seen CFRs much lower than that in previous outbreaks.
And I think that's something important to keep in mind.
a CFR of 90% could be considered the upper limit of outbreaks caused by Zarebola virus.
The cumulative average, considering all Ebola cases and deaths from 1976 to present, is actually closer to about 60 to 65%.
And the current outbreak thus far has a CFR of about 54%, though it's subject to change as the outbreak wanes on.
The two biggest factors that are influencing case fatality rate are, first, familiarity with the disease.
This is the first time that we've seen Ebola in West Africa, so it caught everybody by surprise.
And the second is availability of resources to contain, prevent, and treat the people that are sick.
When you have large ranges in CFR, like you do with Ebola, it isn't really appropriate to give one extreme or the other.
I think if we were to use CFR for Ebola, we really ought to give the cumulative average since the initial emergence of the disease in 1976.
And that's significantly less than the 90% estimate that we hear a lot in the media and in news reports.
First and foremost, you would have to have a person that has Ebola get on a plane in West Africa in route to the United States.
The likelihood of this is actually quite small because only about 1,700 people have Ebola so far in this given outbreak.
And West Africa is a big place.
You would also need the person to not be symptomatic because if they were symptomatic, they would be feeling so ill that they probably wouldn't be flying.
So let's assume that does actually happen and they land in New York City, for instance.
Now, by this time, if they're not showing symptoms yet, then there might be a potential for sustained transmission.
What's more likely is that by the time that they arrive in the United States, they may not be feeling so well.
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