Assessing the impact of travel restrictions on international spread of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic

C Poletto; M F Gomes; A Pastore y Piontti; L Rossi; L Bioglio; D L Chao; I M Longini Jr; M E Halloran; V Colizza; A Vespignani

doi:10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.42.20936

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Assessing the impact of travel restrictions on international spread of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic
C Poletto^1,2 , M F Gomes³ , A Pastore y Piontti³ , L Rossi⁴ , L Bioglio^1,2 , D L Chao⁵ , I M Longini Jr⁶ , M E Halloran⁵ , V Colizza^1,2,4 , A Vespignani³
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Affiliations: ¹ INSERM, UMR-S 1136, Institut Pierre Louis d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, Paris, France ² Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR-S 1136, Institut Pierre Louis d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, Paris, France ³ Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-Technical Systems, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States ⁴ Institute for Scientific Interchange (ISI), Turin, Italy ⁵ Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, United States ⁶ Department of Biostatistics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States

Correspondence:
V Colizza
vittoria.colizza inserm.fr
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Citation style for this article: Poletto C, Gomes M F, Pastore y Piontti A, Rossi L, Bioglio L, Chao D L, Longini Jr I M, Halloran M E, Colizza V, Vespignani A. Assessing the impact of travel restrictions on international spread of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic. Euro Surveill. 2014;19(42):pii=20936. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.42.20936 Received: 26 Sept 2014

Abstract

The quick spread of an Ebola outbreak in West Africa has led a number of countries and airline companies to issue travel bans to the affected areas. Considering data up to 31 Aug 2014, we assess the impact of the resulting traffic reductions with detailed numerical simulations of the international spread of the epidemic. Traffic reductions are shown to delay by only a few weeks the risk that the outbreak extends to new countries.