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Latest Ebola outbreak spreading much faster than in the past

The CDC estimates as many as 500,000 people in West Africa could be infected by the new year.

By Brooks Hays
This National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) image taken on August 12, 2014 by a digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle. Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is one of numerous Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. It is a severe, often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates. UPI/NIAID
This National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) image taken on August 12, 2014 by a digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle. Ebola hemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF) is one of numerous Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. It is a severe, often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates. UPI/NIAID | License Photo

WARWICK, England, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- The spreading Ebola outbreak has entered uncharted territory. The virus became the deadliest on record some time ago, but new research suggests it's spreading at an exponential rate -- a worrying sign there is just something "different" about this latest outbreak.

"What the results seem to indicate is that it isn't just an extreme event," Thomas House, a mathematician at England's University of Warwick, told The New Republic last week. "It's becoming more and more likely that there's something different this time."

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House developed a new mathematical model to analyze how Ebola outbreaks have behaved in the past as a way to better predict and understand the latest outbreak. The only problem is the latest outbreak simply doesn't fit House's model. The mathematician used statistics related to the timing of previous outbreaks, as well as the number of infections and deaths. His model was able to accurately describe the patterns of past outbreaks. But plug in the numbers from the latest epidemic and the model breaks down.

"It could be a mutation," he told TNR. "It could be that the way that society is structured has changed as West Africa's developed: People are in contact with more other people. It could be that control efforts or the behavioral response are just different. My model isn't detailed enough to say exactly which one."

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Whatever it is, it's concerning. The latest estimates put the number of people infected so far at 5,357. Some 2,630 have perished.

And it's not just House predicting an accelerated rate of infection. The CDC estimates as many as 500,000 people in West Africa could be infected by the new year.

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