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Editor's Note #19 VDU takes a pause...[UPDATE]



With so many other great, and sometimes overlapping, graphical sources of MERS-CoV information around right now, this seems like a good time to take a break from blogging for a while. 

In the short-term, I'm going to devote my hobby-time to some other virus-related reading & quite a few career-related tasks as well. Sadly, while I immensely enjoy this new-found science communication and writing gig, it does not contribute anything to my "day job". Not a jot...well 2 papers and a review in the pipeline and a million media interviews (those are not viewed with much value by the job, but I feel they are of use for the much wider community). I'm not talking about financial benefits here, I'm referring to blogging not ticking any boxes that contribute to my role description. Social media is still very much though of as a place for selfies and not sciences in many (?most) circles. We're still quite some way off the day when researchers will be expected to be able to engage their stakeholders or share around their knowledge. Sure, there are words on paper here and there, but reality and recognition? Not on my horizon anyway. Sad but true. Also, the level of additional research that goes into this hobby is pretty hard to sustain.

So, while I'm off having a change and a think about things, please do enjoy the back-catalogue if you need a VDU fix.

Note #1: Its not my intention to stop blogging for those concerned about that!
Note #2:  Thanks to Prof Racaniello's inspirational comment (stop whinging, do more - see here), I'll try and make some more time to keep up with the blogging.

Ebola virus disease (EVD) 2014 West African outbreak..

I will update this static page (link won't change so you can bookmark it) with the 2014 West African Ebola virus disease (EVD) numbers after they are released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The date these graphs were last updated is listed at the top of the first panel or "dashboard" of graphs an totals .

The WHO create multi-page Situation Reports [2] and brief Situation Summaries.[3] The SitRep's are currently presented on Wednesday and "additional updated figures" will be posted" a SitSumm when they become available any day of the week" (via eMail to journalists from WHO).


My totals include all
 countries that have hosted a case in, or sourced from, a West African nation. Countries include Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria (now EVD-free), Senegal (now EVD-free), the United States of America, Spain (now EVD-free), Mali (now EVD-free) and the United Kingdom. 'EVD-free means there are no known cases of EVD in the country. Some countries bring in cases of EVD to treat them; they can be defined as free of Ebola virus transmission, but not technically free of the EVD.









The West African region epidemic (top map below), including countries with imported cases and the totals from past Ebola virus disease outbreaks and the few imported monkey cases (the US & Philippines [hence zero human cases]) plotted by total numbers and country (bottom map).




A note about the proportion of fatal cases (PFC): On these graphs, my PFC calculations for West African countries and the DRC are based on dividing the total number of suspected+probable+confirmed deaths by the number of total suspected+probable+confirmed cases on the same date. This is crude and is an underestimate of the true case fatality ratio (CFR) which has stood at ~70% throughout the epidemic.[2]

Reminders: 

  • The graphs above, as with all made by me VDU, are made for general interest only. It is also freely available for anyone's use, just cite the blog (http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/) and me (Dr. Ian M Mackay, PhD) please. It may be that I have misinterpreted the language in the reports (sometimes a little tricky to wade through) or miscalculated some totals based on the way data have been presented. 
  • Sometimes there are very country-specific differences in what gets presented to/via the World WHO DONs/SitReps which make this process less clear than it could be. I recommend you have a read and compare the data from each of the countries for yourself to understand these issues.
  • As I've talked about previously,[1] these numbers are all volatile for a variety of reasons, some Ebola-specific, so regard this chart for its trends only.
  • I am only able to plot what is publicly available. To date, this does not include granular data with dates of onset, or daily data of any kind. The WHO have these data and you will see them become more available through their Situation Reports found here http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/ 
  1. References... 
    1. Ebola virus disease and lab testing...
      http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/ebola-virus-disease-and-lab-testing.html
    2. Ebola virus disease outbreak Situation Reports (SitRep)
      http://apps.who.int/ebola/en/current-situation
    3. Ebola virus disease outbreak Situation Summaries (SitSumm)
      http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.ebola-sitrep.ebola-summary-latest?lang=en

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) West Africa update for 1-July-2014... [UPDATED]

Some quick visualizations of the Zaire ebolavirus outbreak data based, as previously,[1] on the World Health Organization's publicly available data.

The presentation below is made using Tableau, a new platform for me so please let me know of anything that has failed, numbers that are wrong, something that's translated / formatted badly on your device...whatever. Tableau certainly allows for much faster updating of charts...once you've put a leash on it anyway.

PLEASE NOTE: I now have these same data on a static page (one with a webpage address that does not change with each updated blog).
Please vist the links below for the latest EVD numbers and maps.




References...
  1. Ebola virus disease (EVD) West Africa update for 24-June, WHO-AFRO update...
    http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/ebola-virus-disease-evd-west-africa_25.html
  2. Ebola virus disease, West Africa � update | Disease outbreak news | 1 July 2014
    http://www.who.int/csr/don/2014_07_01_ebola/en/
  3. Ebola virus disease and lab testing...
    http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/ebola-virus-disease-and-lab-testing.html

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