UCI Professor to Answer the Most Pressing Questions about Ebola in Newport Beach

From a press release:

The Newport Beach Public Library, in collaboration with UC Irvine Health, will present “Ebola: What You Should Know” at the Central Library at 7 p.m. Nov. 13.

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Dr. Andrew Noymer, associate professor of the Program in Public Health at UC Irvine, is a demographer and epidemiologist specializing in infectious disease mortality. He will discuss the outbreak of the disease in West Africa, how it is spread, what is being done to stop the epidemic and the economic impact of Ebola on West Africa and the world.

The program will be held in the Central Library Friends Meeting Room, 1000 Avocado Ave., Newport Beach.

Dr. Andrew Noymer will address the most pressing questions about the urgent situation in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in what has become, by far, the largest ever outbreak of Ebola since the killer virus was first identified in 1976.

There have been approximately 10,000 cases to date, including the first-ever transmission of the virus outside of Africa, in cases involving healthcare workers in Spain and Texas. With a case fatality rate higher than 50 percent and the three-country West African epidemic showing no immediate signs of abating, there are a lot of questions:

What is Ebola virus and what do we know about it? What animals are the natural hosts of Ebola?

How does Ebola spread? What is being done to stop the epidemic? When will the African outbreak

end? What are the chances of the virus spreading to the US more than it has already? What will be the economic impact of Ebola on West Africa and the world? Is Orange County prepared and ready to handle an Ebola case?

Andrew Noymer is an associate professor in the Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention, part of UCI’s Program in Public Health. He received his PhD in sociology from Berkeley, an MSc in Medical Demography from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and an AB in Biology from Harvard. Andrew’s work focuses on infectious disease from historical, epidemiological, demographic, and sociological perspectives. He has published scientific articles on influenza epidemics, the evolution of mortality, and numerous other topics in medical demography.

The event is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served, limited by room capacity.

For more information, please contact the Library at 949-717-3800, option 2, or visit the website at www.newportbeachlibrary.org.