A quantitative framework to define the end of an outbreak: application to Ebola Virus Disease

Bimandra A Djaafara; Natsuko Imai; Esther Hamblion; Benido Impouma; Christl A Donnelly; Anne Cori

We propose a quantitative framework that can be used to assess the EO. The first step is estimating the key outbreak parameters: instantaneous reproduction number, reporting rate, and serial interval distribution. These can be estimated from outbreak data using widely available and established methods which increasingly account for sparse data (34) (35) (36) (37) . The next step is to implement the method developed in this study to determine the day when the probability of cases arising in the future is deemed acceptable (in this study < 5%), and an outbreak can be declared over. The developed method is generic; thus it could be implemented for outbreaks of other pathogens, primarily if they are air-borne or transmitted by direct contact.