The combination of a long incubation period, a reported 50% survival rate, unsanitary conditions, local funerary customs and the rejection medical interventions in many remote areas suggests that a mathematical tipping point may have been reached for much of central Africa at the very least. If this is so, the outbreak will be difficult if not impossible to stop WHERE such conditions prevail.
Contrary to common logic, global mortality will rise exponentially with improved survivability up to a point. I don't know where that point is but the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919 had a mortality of around 20%. Previously Ebola outbreaks have never taken hold because almost everyone who got the virus died.
A key (to me unanswered) question is whether or not the reported survivability is primarily die to treatment OR whether there has been a Antigenic Shift or and Antigenic Drift in the virus itself. IF the virus has mutated to be less lethal we are in big trouble. While Ebola is not a virus that mutates easily any virus can change or evolve in certain conditions.
Beyond the rough Spanish Flu morality comparison above the use of Influenza pandemic knowledge to predict the dynamics of this Ebola outbreak is foolish. The two viruses have different transmission dynamics and the underlying resistance of human populations to each virus group is vastly different.
Reports suggest there has been gross under reporting of this epidemic so the numbers necessary to derive a mathematical model of how this virus may or may not spread just aren't there.
