Fig. 1.

Sensitivity of the probability of the end of an Ebola epidemic to sexual transmission characteristics.

Vertical axis measures the probability of observing additional cases on or after the specified week, while the horizontal axis measures the weeks since the last case was buried or tested negative twice for Ebola virus. Panels A, C and E examine the sensitivity of the probability of the end of an epidemic to the proportion of sexual transmissions among all secondary transmissions. Of the two vertical lines, the solid line represents the week in which the end of the epidemic was declared, following a 42-day waiting period as specified by the World Health Organization. The dashed vertical line represents the week in which a recrudescent case occurred after the first erroneous declaration was recognized. The horizontal dashed line measures the probability at 5% below which one may regard that the epidemic is over. Panels B, D and F measure the sensitivity of the probability to the mean duration of detecting viral RNA.