PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - J. Daniel Kelly
AU  - Lee Worden
AU  - Rae Wannier
AU  - Nicole A. Hoff
AU  - Patrick Mukadi
AU  - Cyrus Sinai
AU  - Sarah Ackley
AU  - Xianyun Chen
AU  - Daozhou Gao
AU  - Bernice Selo
AU  - Mathais Mossoko
AU  - Emile Okitolonda-Wemakoy
AU  - Eugene T. Richardson
AU  - George W. Rutherford
AU  - Thomas M. Lietman
AU  - Jean Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum
AU  - Anne W. Rimoin
AU  - Travis C. Porco
TI  - Real-time projections of Ebola outbreak size and duration with and without vaccine use in Équateur, Democratic Republic of Congo, as of May 27, 2018
AID  - 10.1101/331447
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 331447
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/04/331447.1.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/04/331447.1.full
AB  - Background As of May 27, 2018, 54 cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) were reported in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. We used reported case counts and time series from prior outbreaks to estimate the current outbreak size and duration with and without vaccine use.Methods We modeled Ebola virus transmission using a stochastic branching process model with a negative binomial distribution, using both estimates of reproduction number R declining from supercritical to subcritical derived from past Ebola outbreaks, as well as a particle filtering method to generate a probabilistic projection of the future course of the outbreak conditioned on its reported trajectory to date; modeled using 0%, 44%, and 62% estimates of vaccination coverage. Additionally, we used the time series for 18 prior Ebola outbreaks from 1976 to 2016 to parameterize a regression model predicting the outbreak size from the number of observed cases from April 4 to May 27.Results With the stochastic transmission model, we projected a median outbreak size of 78 EVD cases (95% credible interval: 52, 125.4), 86 cases (95% credible interval: 53, 174.3), and 91 cases (95% credible interval: 52, 843.5), using 62%, 44%, and 0% estimates of vaccination coverage. With the regression model, we estimated a median size of 85.0 cases (95% prediction interval: 53.5, 216.6).Conclusions This outbreak has the potential to be the largest outbreak in DRC since 2007. Vaccines are projected to limit outbreak size and duration but are only part of prevention, control, and care strategies.