Tackling Ebola
Submitted to: Dr Eric G. Frost, Ph.D.
Date: 12 October 2014
Matthew Rumsey
matthewrumsey@gmail.com
Graduate Student – MS Homeland Security program
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182
Project Abstract
San Diego State University (SDSU) is seeking grants to enable the implementation of several
ideas with the objective of helping all our at risk ‘first responder’ EMTs, prevent infection to
the Ebola virus, allow better containment, control, and prevention of the virus (in ‘infected’
countries), enable more streamlined news feeding to our citizens while improving the social
perception of US efforts in the West Africa region, and increase speed of research. The
objective is that by the end of January 2015 the virus will not have spread to any of our US
based first responders, research for treatment / cure / detection is in more advanced stage,
containment and control will continue to be implemented to see a downward trend of the
virus and the public perception of US involvement is seen as a positive role in this crisis. US
sponsored university will have made a significant contribution to identify a vaccination or
cure through crowd sourced efforts. Funding in the amount of $13,775,000 is requested for
labor resource, research tools and materials.
Statement of Need
The Ebola virus has been spreading with tremendous speed and with a very high mortality
rate, up to 90% in some epidemics. There are three main countries massively affected by this
outbreak so far—all in West Africa. Widespread transmission has been identified in Sierra
Leone, Liberia, and Guinea; however there is very serious concern that there may already be
localized transmission in neighboring countries including Nigeria and Ivory Coast.
There have been travel-associated cases of Ebola as far as Macedonia, United States, and
Senegal making the threat very real. So far, there is 100% fatality rate for Ebola in United
States.
More needs to be done to combat the spread and contain the disease while effective
treatments are developed.
Program Description
Open source intelligence, mapping, and communication technologies will enable more
effective organizational efforts for US Africom and mobilized field units, aid agencies, and
local / state authorities, allow better local road efficiencies and virus prevention methods for
all interested parties including local populations through a range of activities.
This proposal has many facets. The first and potentially biggest impacting part of this
proposal is to outsource or “crowd source” testing and research of Ebola virus for potential
cure or vaccine. Local specialized field units currently collect and analyze results on the
ground. Proposal is to use Internet infrastructure, in particular fiber networks between West
Africa and United States to send all complex tests for analysis at United States Universities
where we have specialized equipment, faculty, local experts and huge student body ready and
prepared to volunteer their time. SDSU, in particular, currently has world class team on
campus.
Second, SDSU and Center for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) could make use of its
substantial computational power to create an algorithm to better identify the virus based on
blood tests or oral swaps – potentially identifying positive results earlier, allowing earlier
isolation and stemming spread sooner.
Third, there is currently no central or leading place on social media communicating what the
US is contributing to the effort in combatting Ebola. Some efforts by US AID ("USAID
(@USAID) | Twitter," n.d.), USMC ("U.S. Marines (@USMC) | Twitter," n.d.) and
AFRICOM ("US AFRICOM (@USAfricaCommand) | Twitter," n.d.) exist but they are not
joined up nor are they presenting a single unified message – there is potential for confusion
and currently they are only published in English on Western social media websites. There are
also duplicate and old/unused twitter accounts that are no longer in use ("U.S. Africa
Command (@africom) | Twitter," n.d.) but still active presenting yet more unattractive
attention to the US effort – the perception could be that the US is doing nothing to help if
people check the wrong twitter account. SDSU students can organize shutting of these ‘dead’
accounts. Social media can be used very importantly for a range of powerful reasons. SDSU
has a unique and diverse ground of students from a range of cultures in every continent.
Communicating ideas, news, and important information in a language and style appropriate to
the audience on platforms they actually use (Facebook & Twitter are not the most popular in
some parts of Africa) is of critical importance – SDSU would use the worlds and regions
biggest social media platforms to communicate field hospital locations – details in point four.
One example where this would happen is in Saudi Arabia where thousands of Muslim
pilgrims flock to Mecca for The Hajj. Communicating to people in their own language and
style would be a very easy but powerful way for SDSU students to spread positive US
generated message and informative, reliable, trustworthy information to help combat this
situation.
Fourth, using openstreetmap.org, students at SDSU could add all locations of field hospitals
provided by the United States, United Kingdom, NGOs and local / state entities in-country.
Cell phone penetration in Africa is over 50% in all affected countries (Tortora, 2014) so this
would allow previously mentioned entities to add treatment capacity data (via cell phones) as
well as allowing civilian population to deliver sick individuals to areas they can attain
treatment rather than arriving at facilities that are full or closed. SDSU students can direct
populations to pertinent openstreetmap.org URLs using social media campaign discussed in
point three.
Openstreetmap.org is a very powerful tool and SDSU students are able to use Open Source
Intelligence (OSINT) to map very useful information. In some parts of Africa some villages
only have one access road – SDSU can easily and quickly mark which roads are considered
‘red roads’ to allow locals and treatment workers not to travel on that road. Students can also
use this tool to map exactly where confirmed cases break out and also mark ‘no walk zones’
to communicate where local population should avoid if possible – done using confirmed data
of Ebola virus or by major treatment center locations. (Fig. 1) Worth remembering that there
have been several attempts by local populations and patients to enter or leave Ebola clinics to
see loved ones ("The Fight Against Ebola (Full Length) | VICE News," 2014) which would
all contribute to spread – if no people are in the ‘no walk zone’ the risk of spreading from
these cases will be substantially lower. The ambition here is to aid the ground workers and
local populations and to better control / prevent further spread of the virus.
Fig. 1 – ‘No walk zone’ identified on openstreetmap.org using overlays from confirmed cases.
Sanitation and running water are huge risks to spreading the Ebola virus. The grisly task of
identifying how and where to safely / culturally dispose of fatalities is something that SDSU
students and faculty from the homeland security, geology, geography and public health
departments would have very sufficient skills to solve. Using OSINT and mapping tools to
identify flat areas of ground (‘plateaus’) where water would not run easily or even exist very
frequently, away from wildlife that may spread the virus and somewhere with little or no
downwind (toward populations) – away from civilization – this gruesome but very important
task can be achieved using the information supplied by SDSU. This is a much more preferred
method of disposal than leaving bodies in the streets. ("The Fight Against Ebola (Full Length)
| VICE News," 2014)
SDSU would use part of any grant money to create an ‘Aid Box’ with Ebola specific
protective clothing, goggles and cleaning fluids and distribute it to all major treatment centers
in the United States, so that if a suspected Ebola case is reported our EMTs are better
protected. We know that Ebola is spread through water and fluids which leaves our EMTs
very vulnerable to contact through eyes – having a one-stop-shop standard equipment across
the EMT community will lower the risk if they suspect a case until more proper containment
equipment can arrive at the scene. The ‘Aid Boxes’ would be small, simple, portable, and
highly available to institutions that would like them. CDC and FEMA would also be sent this
equipment for wider-scale emergency management situations. There are 5723 hospitals
registered in the US. Assuming each hospital in the country requires 10 units, I anticipate a
total of 57,230 units with an additional 2770 units for CDC / FEMA meaning a total 60,000
units need developing, producing and shipping.
References:
U.S. Marines (@USMC) | Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/USMC
US AFRICOM (@USAfricaCommand) | Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/USAfricaCommand
USAID (@USAID) | Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/USAID
U.S. Africa Command (@africom) | Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/africom
Tortora, B. (2014, May 1). Africa Continues Going Mobile. Retrieved from
http://www.gallup.com/poll/168797/africa-continues-going-mobile.aspx
The Fight Against Ebola (Full Length) | VICE News [Video file]. (2014, October 9).
Retrieved from https://news.vice.com/video/the-fight-against-ebola-full-length
Goals & Objectives
1. Develop plausible treatment or vaccine using “crowd sourced” testing and
research efforts from SDSU and other US institutions including CHPC.
2. Develop better method of identifying positive Ebola cases by using US
computational power to run simulations.
3. Improve public perceptions that the US effort exists and is helping by using social
media smarter. Run campaign not just in English but other popular spoken
languages in the US while also sharing information in impact languages.
4. Aid logistics and treatment flow by making additions to accessible tools that aid
workers and population in West Africa can access.
5. Reduce infection rate and limit spread by using cloud tools to identify best areas
for ‘human needs’ such as sanitation and creation of ‘Aid Box’.
Budget / RoM
FT Total Labor Resource
(TRL) until 01/31/2015
Treatment / vaccine
development & CHPC
costs
Ebola Identification
Research
Social Media Campaign
‘Aid Box’ development
and materials
Shipment of Aid Box
Individual Price
$ 25,000
Quantity
15
Total
$ 375,000
$ 250,000
1
$ 250,000
$ 250,000
1
$ 250,000
$0 (Student Run) 5
$ 200
60,000
$ FREE
$ 12,000,000
$15
$ 900,000
$ 13,775,000 Total
60,000