Experts from Japan, after analyzing the global air transportation network, came to disturbing conclusions. After studying the routes from the epidemic-stricken Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, scientists have calculated the probability of arrival of at least one carrier of the virus in a particular country in the coming month.
According to calculations, in the most unfavorable scenario, the infected person may end up in Belgium with a probability of 92%, in France - 91%, in the UAE - 88%, in Turkey - 86%. The study processed data on 11,264 airports, 569,741 routes and passenger traffic of 330 million people, RuNews24 writes.
However, the scientific work emphasizes that the risk of infection entering the country does not necessarily mean that the disease will spread locally. The analysis of the "effective distance" allowed us to identify not only Belgium, France, South Africa, Kenya, and the UAE as key hubs for monitoring, but also created a mathematical framework for timely monitoring of the global situation. It is not yet known which strain of the virus is threatening Europe or the exact scale of the current outbreak in Central Africa, but the simulations give health services a head start in preparing.
According to the Governments of the DRC and Uganda, as of early June, about 500 cases of Ebola virus infection with almost 100 deaths had already been reported in the region. The current outbreak, which began in the spring of 2025, has become one of the most serious in recent years.
Japanese scientists are calling on international airports to strengthen sanitary controls on flights from Africa in order to minimize the threat, which their mathematical model recognizes as extremely high.
