Workshop Details

The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa reminded us that the world is ill-prepared for a severe disease epidemic or for any similar global sustained public emergency. The risk of future global severe infectious disease outbreaks in an increasingly connected world is greater than ever. In the developing world, for example, accelerated urbanization has concentrated a non-immune population in settings where high infectious disease vectors and population densities, the main factors contributing to increased disease transmission, are present. Because of these local severe disease risks coupled with our global interconnectedness through transportation, increasing migration, tourism and trade, infectious diseases emerge and re-emerge more frequently; spread greater distances; pass more easily between humans and animals; and evolve into new and more virulent strains.

We plan a workshop devoted to examining how past severe disease outbreaks were contained while reviewing the world's response to these epidemics. It will explore how mathematical models can be used to understand and forecast disease transmission dynamics and to evaluate the effect of different interventions and changing on-the-ground conditions on epidemiological outcomes. The workshop will concentrate on the responses to the recent Ebola outbreak, while gaining insight from responses to HIV/AIDS and other epidemics by public health systems within individual countries. It will also explore epidemiology of the diseases in humans and animals; economic and political fallout from these epidemics; quarantine laws and other public health measures that apply to combating infectious diseases; and the role of international organizations and scientific cooperation in halting the spread of these epidemics.

The workshop will bring together public health officials as well as mathematicians, biologists, ecologists and epidemiologists from both the US and Africa to identify important modeling issues and to establish new collaborations on what might be needed in order to contain any future outbreaks of Ebola and other emerging or re-emerging severe infectious diseases while treating illnesses associated with the disease before they become a public health emergency.

The goals of the workshop are to:

• Promote interdisciplinary multi-national approaches to the development of rapid, sustainable countermeasure responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
• Encourage the establishment of new collaborations for research on preventing, containing and controlling emerging or re-emerging severe infectious diseases.
• Develop mathematical models for understanding the epidemiological factors that are likely to shape emerging or re-emerging severe infectious disease outbreaks.

The workshop will be organized around three working groups. We will break up the participants into the discussion groups, have them meet and prepare a "report-out" to the entire group, and then repeat this later. The groups will aim to prepare a white paper with lessons learned and next steps in research. A list of working groups and their topics is as follows:

• Working Group 1: What are the key epidemiological, ecological, social, political, and economic factors affecting the spread of infectious disease and how do we bring them into our models?
  • What mitigating strategies might we take to reduce the risk of spread of emerging zoonotic diseases and disease spillovers? For example, education that leads to change in behaviors (example, reduce dependence on bushmeat, cultural practices, etc); plan for vaccine development; plan strategies for vaccinating health care workers; develop methods for coordinating national and international responses to outbreaks, etc.).

   

• Working Group 2: Improving the use and relevance of data driven mathematical models for informing key governmental and non-governmental organizations.
  • What is the role of data? How do we ensure relevant data availability, reliability and security?

   

• Working Group 3: What are the implications of climate change on the spread of infectious disease?
  • How can we model the effects of climate change on zoonotic disease outbreaks and spillovers?