Grass hut with an Ebola warning sign

Project Details

Contacts
Bryan Lewis
Madhav Marathe

From Ebola to the Future of Pandemic Preparedness

During the 2014 Ebola crisis, Biocomplexity Institute researchers developed large-scale simulations that helped evaluate interventions and resource deployment in real time. Today, those same foundations support next-generation digital twins for pandemic preparedness and biological threat response.

Our work included:

  • Supported 3 official DTRA Reachback requests (USSOUTHCOM, USNORTHCOM, and RCTE) for Ebola modeling to support planning for specific scenarios and different countries
  • Extension of Legrand model with optimized fit of compartmental model to observed data, providing weekly forecasts for last 6 months
  • Analysis showing extended Legrand estimation of key parameters very close to WHO Ebola Response Team reported values from actual data
  • Construction and fusion of synthetic information resources for 5 Ebola-stricken African nations, used as foundation for agent-based simulations of Ebola transmission and control
  • Estimated impact of newly constructed Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) based on estimates of future cases
  • Used two methods to determine optimal location for ETU sites, based on geographically specific forecasts of disease as well as most equitably serving population
  • Estimated extent behavioral adaptation could have on the overall epidemic, looking at earliest affected county with successful control measures (Lofa), and then applying nationally
  • Development of "Eyes-on-the-Ground" framework, specifically a web-app to augment situational awareness of the road conditions, travel time, and movement along Liberia's roads
  • Development of forecast fusion web-application, allows the analysis, comparison, and sharing of several forecasts from several systems
  • Hosted “Computing for Ebola Hackathon” event, Oct 3rd-10th which produced projects that analyzed data, created platforms for better dissemination of data, visualized information, and developed several web-based tools to assist in the Ebola response.
  • Created agent-based simulations assessing tentative vaccine trial designs and impact of potential vaccination campaigns
Media
  • A Virtual Outbreak Offers Hints of Ebola's Future. Greenfield-Boyce N. All Things Considered, NPR. 2014 Aug 14. Link
  • Disease modelers project a rapidly rising toll from Ebola. Kupferschmidt K. Science. 2014 Aug 31. Link
  • A Diplomat Infects A Doctor As Ebola Spreads In Nigeria. Knox R. Goats and Soda, NPR. 2014 Sep 5. Link
  • U.S. Scientists See Long Fight Against Ebola. Grady D. The New York Times. 2014 Sep 12. Link
  • Chasing Ebola. Elliot D. The Atlantic. 2014 Sep 23. Link
  • Ebola Cases Could Reach 1.4 Million Within Four Months, C.D.C. Estimates. Grady D. The New York Times. 2014 Sep 23. Link
  • Why The CDC Thinks 1.4 Million People Might Contract Ebola By February. Parsley L. Popular Science. 2014 Sep 25. Link
  • Ebola Outbreak 2014: How Researchers Use Big Data To Help Stop The Disease. Caulderwood K. International Business Times. 2014 Sep 25. Link
  • Virginia Bioinformatics Institute models provided early alert to deadly potential of Ebola outbreak. Virginia Tech News. 2014 Sep 26. Link
  • Does Ebola Spread Faster in Cities? Misra T. Bloomberg CityLab. 2014 Oct 3. Link
  • Track Ebola’s US spread with these 5 tools. Hampton T. Silicon Angle. 2014 Oct 6. Link
  • Containing Ebola In The United States. The Diane Rehm Show [Podcast]. 2014 Oct 6. Link
  • These hackers are developing apps to stop the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Medina D. Quartz. 2014 Oct 10. Link
  • Modeling the Path of Ebola. Radio IQ [Podcast]. WVTF. 2014 Oct 15. Link
  • Success in Modeling Ebola’s Spread Depends on Wealth of Data. Craven McGinty J. The Wall Street Journal. 2014 Oct 17. Link
  • Analysis: Computer geeks are being used in the fight against Ebola. Jarlner M. Politiken Internationalt. 2014 Oct 18. Link
  • Containing Ebola Like They Did in This Video Game. Note to Self [Podcast]. WNYC. 2014 Oct 22. Link
  • We could’ve stopped Ebola if we’d listened to the data. Rivers C. Quartz. 2014 Oct 24. Link
  • How crowd sourcing and supercomputing are helping Sierra Leone combat its Ebola epidemic. Guilford G. Quartz. 2014 Oct 27. Link
  • Fewer Ebola cases go unreported than thought, study finds. McNeil Jr DG. The New York Times. 2014 Dec 16. Link
  • How computer modelers took on the Ebola outbreak. Brown D. IEEE Spectrum. 2015. Link
  • DDN and Virginia Bioinformatics Institute life sciences success story. DataDirect Networks. 2015. Link
  • Biocomplexity Institute’s Ebola-tested tools help set new standard for federal disease control. Virginia Tech News. 2017 Jun 30. Link
  • Special agents offer modeling upgrade. Waldrop MM. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2017 Jul 11;114(28):7176-9. Link
  • From A-bombs to Zika: Virginia Tech institute to guide planning for major disaster scenarios. Virginia Tech News. 2018 Feb 5. Link
Publications
  • Ebola: Mobility data. Halloran M, Vespignani A, Bharti N, Feldstein L, Alexander K, Ferrari M, Shaman J, Drake J, Porco T, Eisenberg J, Valle S, Lofgren E, Scarpino S, Eisenberg M, Gao D, Hyman J, Eubank S, Longini Jr I. Science. 2014 Oct 24;346(6208):433. Link
  • The potential impact of increased hospital capacity to contain and control Ebola in Liberia. Lofgren E, Rivers C, Marathe M, Eubank S, Lewis B. arXiv preprint:1410.8207. 2014 Oct 30. Link
  • Modeling the impact of interventions on an epidemic of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Rivers C, Lofgren E, Marathe M, Eubank S, Lewis B. PLoS currents. 2014 Nov 6;ecurrents-outbreaks. Link
  • Ebola: models do more than forecast. Rivers C, Alexander K, Bellan S, Valle S, Drake J, Eisenberg J, Eubank S, Ferrari M, Halloran M, Galvani A, Lewis B, Lewnard J, Lofgren E, Macal C, Marathe M, Mbah M, Meyers L, Meza R, Park A, Porco T, Scarpino S, Shaman J, Vespignani A, Yang W. Nature. 2014 Nov 27;515(7528). Link
  • Opinion: Mathematical models: A key tool for outbreak response. Lofgren E, Halloran M, Rivers C, Drake J, Porco T, Lewis B, Yang W, Vespignani A, Shaman J, Eisenberg J, Eisenberg M. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2014 Dec 23;111(51):18095-6. Link
  • Is it just bad luck? Examining the role of random chance in the epidemiology of Ebola. Lofgren E, Rivers C, Lewis B, Marathe M, Wilson M, Chen J, Eubank S. Open Forum Infectious Diseases. 2015;2(suppl_1):1399. Infectious Diseases Society of America. Link 
  • Assisting H1N1 and Ebola outbreak response through high performance networked epidemiology. Marathe M. 2015 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. 2015 May 25:831. Link
  • What factors might have led to the emergence of Ebola in West Africa? Alexander K, Sanderson C, Marathe M, Lewis B, Rivers C, Shaman J, Drake J, Lofgren E, Dato V, Eisenberg M, Eubank S. PLoS neglected tropical diseases. 2015 Jun 4;9(6):e0003652. Link
  • An integrated agent-based approach for modeling disease spread in large populations to support health informatics. Bissett K, Cadena J, Khan M, Kuhlman CJ, Lewis B, Telionis PA. 2016 IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI). 2016 Feb 24:629-632. Link
  • The RAPIDD Ebola forecasting challenge: Synthesis and lessons learned. Viboud C, et al. Epidemics. 2018 Mar 1;22:13-21. Link
  • The ecology of pathogen spillover and disease emergence at the human-wildlife-environment interface. Alexander K, Carlson C, Lewis B, Getz W, Marathe M, Eubank S, Sanderson C, Blackburn J. The connections between ecology and infectious disease. 2018 Aug 31:267-298. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Link
  • Modeling the Impact of Vaccine Delivery on the 2018-2019 North Kivu & Ituri Ebola Outbreak. Meranus D, Hill T, Tyler M, Lewis B, Sanders A, Schwartz K, Wu A. Available at SSRN 3432562. 2019 Jul 31. Link
  • Methods for rapid mobility estimation to support outbreak response. Telionis PA, Corbett P, Venkatramanan S, Lewis B. Health security. 2020 Feb 1;18(1):1-5. Link
  • Operational considerations in global health modeling. Broadway K, Schwartz-Watjen K, Swiatecka A, Hadeed S, Owens A, Batni S, Wu A. Pathogens. 2021 Oct 19;10(10):1348. Link