• Anuwat Wiratsudakul, Wannapong Triampo, Yongjua Laosiritaworn, and Charin Modchang.
• Department of Clinical Sciences and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Phutthamonthon 4 Road, Salaya, Phutthamonthon, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand; The Monitoring and Surveillance Center for Zoonotic Diseases in Wildlife and Exotic Animals, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Phutthamonthon 4 Road, Salaya, Phutthamonthon, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand.
• Travel Med Infect Dis. 2016 Sep 1; 14 (5): 481-488.

BackgroundThe 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest and longest Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in the history, and the virus has escaped across countries and continents via air travel in this outbreak.MethodThe interpolated data from WHO Ebola situation reports were used to estimate number of weekly infectious individuals and daily effective reproduction numbers (Rt) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A stochastic dynamic model was performed to estimate the risk of EVD importation into the top 20 final destination countries of air travelers departing from within the three epidemic countries, and the effectiveness of air travel restriction was subsequently evaluated.ResultsThe daily Rt was estimated at 0.72-1.32 in Guinea, 0.62-1.38 in Liberia and 0.81-1.38 in Sierra Leone. The peak of EVD importation probability was observed in early November 2014 and the restriction of air travel may mitigate the risk up to 67.7% (95% CI 66.6-68.7).ConclusionsOur results suggest that restriction of air travels is effective in reducing the risk of EVD importation but controlling of the virus at the original affected countries is vitally more important for preventing inter-terrestrial dissemination of EVD.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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