[simplemath]

>Our statistical analysis of the reproduction number of EVD in West Africa has demonstrated that the continuous growth of cases from June to August 2014 signalled a major epidemic, which is in line with estimates of the Rt above 1.0. Moreover, the timing of Rt reaching levels above one is in line with a concomitant surge in cases in Sierra Leone and Liberia. In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014.

Not good. R~2 is a deeply scary figure. R1.7 is better but still wildly explosive. 1.4 puts us in run of the mill "ballooning epidemic" territory.

The best case estimates of R-naught for Africa don't have a whole lot of "best" about them.

Clearly the dataset outside Africa isn't large enough to support meaningful analysis yet. I hope it stays that way, and Africa can get its arms around this thing before it kills millions.