  West Africa is currently experiencing a severe outbreak of Ebola virus
disease (EVD). As part of the international effort to address this outbreak,
the United States has committed to building specialized Ebola treatment
facilities with 1700 beds. However, the effectiveness of this increase in the
available healthcare facilities to treat Ebola is unclear, especially in light
of the rapidly increasing number of cases. Adapting a previously validated
mathematical model of Ebola in West Africa, we examine the potential impact of
an increase in hospital capacity to mitigate the impact of Ebola under several
scenarios, ranging from the planned scenario of 1700 beds in 10 weeks to a
considerably more aggressive approach of twice the number of beds in 5 weeks.
We find that even for the most aggressive scenarios, while increasing the
availability of healthcare reduces the number of Ebola cases and slows the
outbreak, it is not sufficient to stop the epidemic within the next three
months. We find that only a combination of increased hospital beds and a
dramatic decrease in the rate of transmission within the community can bring
the epidemic under control within the near future.
