  The most recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa highlighted critical weaknesses
in the medical infrastructure of the affected countries, including effective
diagnostics tools, sufficient isolation wards, and enough medical personnel.
Here, we develop and analyze a mathematical model to assess the impact of early
diagnosis of pre-symptomatic individuals on the transmission dynamics of Ebola
virus disease in West Africa in scenarios where Ebola may remain at low levels
in the population. Our findings highlight the importance of implementing
integrated control measures of early diagnosis and isolation. The mathematical
analysis shows a threshold where early diagnosis of pre-symptomatic
individuals, combined with a sufficient level of effective isolation, can lead
to an epidemic control of Ebola virus disease. That is, the local erradication
of the disease or the effective management of the disease at low levels of
endemicity.
