| Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Department of Mathematics, Arizona State University |
| Title: Beyond Ebola: Lessons to mitigate future pandemics |
| Abstract: It is now just more than a year since the official confirmation of an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in West Africa. With new cases occurring at their lowest rate for 2015, and the end of the outbreak in sight for all three countries predominantly affected, now is the time to consider strategies to prevent future outbreaks of this, and other, zoonotic pathogens. The Ebola outbreak, like many other emerging diseases, illustrates the crucial role of the ecological, social, political, and economic context within which diseases emerge. And so, the question remains, what have we learned from this and past outbreaks of emerging diseases? Dispersal, mobility and residence times play a significant role on disease dynamics especially in the case of emergent or re-emergent diseases like Influenza or Ebola. Phenomenological and mechanistic models that highlight the role of these three factors will be presented in order to highlight the impact of, for example, a “cordon sanitaire,” or the fear of Ebola infection on disease dynamics. We will briefly highlight as well the impact of technology on the dynamics, prevention and control of Ebola9. |