1. Advisor: Professor Sabounchi
Fear as Contagion the Ebola Crisis and Public Fear Networks A System Dynamics Approach
Nasser Sharareh
Advisor: Professor Sabounchi
Systems Science and Industrial Engineering Department
Event: System Dynamics Colloquium
Albany University - State University of New York
03/17/2015

2. Agenda What is Ebola? Introduction Causal Loop Diagram
Simulation Models Outputs vs Real Data
Interested Parameters
Next Steps and Future Research
Conclusion

3. What is Ebola? Patient Zero: a 2-year old boy
Endemic
Transmission occur, but the number of cases remains constant
Epidemic
The number of cases increases
Pandemic
When epidemics occur at several continents – global epidemic
Patient Zero: a 2-year old boy
Case Fatality Rate of 50 to 90 percent
Why are we interested in simulating this problem?
His mother, sister, grandmother died. But his father survived. So if consider this family as our samle, we can say the CFR is 80%.
But this Virus has spreaded before in countries such as Zaire. And CFR is changing between 50 to 90%

4. WHO Situation Report Total Deaths: 10689 Total Cases: 25791

5. Introduction Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as a Behavioral Disease
Using fear as a leverage or try to remove fear
Just As Well Strategy
Consequences of a Ebola
High death rate
Economical loss
Spread of fear
Uncertainty in news
Absence of control over getting infected
The speed of disease spreading and the mortality rate
Infectivity or Case Fatality Rate (CFR)
CFR is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition), over the course of the disease.
Economical loss is much higher, because there would be no tourists anymore. Their currency would loose its worth. Also by closing the borders, sutuations will get worth.

6. Death Incidence vs Number of Tweets
#Ebola facts
#Ebola outbreak
#Ebola virus
#Fighting Ebola
#Stop Ebola
Reference: Accessed March 2015

8. Negative Social Response

9. Dealing With Situations
Reference:
Accessed March 2015

10. Decline In The Attention

11. Doctor’s Activity

12. Twitter Data of Healthcare Worker tweets
Reference:
Accessed March 2015

13. WHO - CDC
Deaths of HIW is 1.5 Million, and deaths of Influenza was 22 million
People in Africa are not educated enough, so numbers are making complications for them, and also it may create fear among them

14. Simulation

15. Simple SIR Model

16. Phase 1

18. Phase 2

20. Phase 3

21. Parameters Parameter Description Literature Review Value
Total Population
Guinea + Liberia + Sirrea Leone
22,136,000
Initial infected
Patient Zero 1
Contact Rate
In a day 25
Infectivity
Probability of becoming infected
0.03
Average DiceaseTime
(4,5) 10
Average DiceaseTime For Quarantined Persons 15
Average Recovery time
(7,12) 7
Average Recovery time From Quarantined
Average Disinfection Time
Bed Turnaround Time
[0.5,1.5] 2

22. Next Steps
Dividing Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered population into two groups, and adding the corresponding fear of Ebola to the simulation
Susceptible
Aware
Unaware (Higher irrational behavior, higher contact rate, and infectivity)
Infected
Symptomatic
Asymptomatic (Incubation time (2,21) with the average of 8-10 days)
Recovered
Completely (People who recover from Ebola infection develop antibodies that last for at least 10 years)
Partially (a few weeks to a few months)

23. Potential Future Research
Reservoir
Human
Cases
Carrier
Animal
Gorillas
chimpanzees
Bat
Non-Living
It’s very difficult to study on these things, it needs research on the field. But I have started working with a anthropologist thay may help me to do that

24. Conclusion
The reason of invalidity of previous models (Arreola, McDuffy, Mejia, & Oliver, 1999), (Kiskowski, 2014) is the absence of
Sociocultural and psychological effects
Behavioral effect
Intervention
Most important key points in controlling the pandemic
Public Perception
Risk Management