Why health officials do not have a good handle on the current Ebola outbreak
Health officials are struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to difficulties in contact tracing. Experts warn that a high percentage of new cases appearing outside known transmission chains indicates the virus is spreading faster than current containment efforts can track.
Why it matters
Effective contact tracing is the primary defense against infectious disease outbreaks; failure to implement it leads to higher mortality rates and uncontrolled spread.
The key to ending any infectious disease outbreak, especially one for which there's no approved vaccine, like the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is getting slightly ahead of the virus.
To do that, health officials need to quickly identify the possible routes a virus might spread, a practice known as contact tracing, says Armand Sprecher , an infectious diseases physician with Doctors Without Borders.
"We find a sick person and say, 'Who was in contact with that sick person? Who took care of them? Who did their laundry, who touched them? Or who went to a burial where somebody had died of this?'" he says.
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