Ebola: US urges strong public health interventions

way2barak, June 6: The US CDC on Friday urged strong public health interventions against the current Ebola outbreak, citing their models that show it could otherwise rival the scale of the 2014 West Africa outbreak.

That eruption of the virus resulted in more than 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

“That scale is possible,” said Jason Asher, director of CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, during a press briefing.

The US projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were part of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report documents published Friday.

The worst outcomes could be avoided if “a larger proportion of patients were identified, isolated, and treated,” the agency said in its reports.

But “the public health response to control this outbreak will likely need to be of similar magnitude to the response for the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak.”