Ebola is a highly fatal and highly infectious virus that was first discovered in West Africa in 1976. Fruit bats are thought to be the virus's natural host.

While most deadly outbreaks have originated in African countries, the last Ebola crisis — which occurred between 2014 and 2016 — spread to the rest of the world including the United States.

In the U.S., four cases were registered, one of which resulted in death.

In this context, predicting the time and location of the next Ebola outbreak may prove particularly useful for preventing it. This is why researchers set out to create a modeling framework that may help us to foresee such an event in the future.

The new study was carried out by Javier Buceta, an associate professor of bioengineering, Paolo Bocchini, who is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and postdoctoral researcher Graziano Fiorillo — all of whom are affiliated with the Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

They hypothesized that, since bats are the carriers of the virus, tracking down their migratory patterns may help to create a predictive framework.

The results of their research were published in the journal Scientific Reports.