The Ebola virus disease has killed roughly 4,500 people, according to the latest statistics, and will infect over 9,000 people by Oct. 20, NBC News reported. The deadly contagion is fatal for roughly half of those infected, and the latest outbreak — the largest and most complex in the disease's history, according to the World Health Organization — has resulted in widespread panic.

Halting the spread of Ebola has proved to be pervasive for health officials as a notable portion of victims — 236 in total — are health care workers. However, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO agents work against the virus, some critics say big data could be the key to stopping it.

Orange Telecom in Senegal has already released data from 150,000 African mobile phone users to a Swedish nonprofit company in an effort to track travel trends, BBC News reported. Using that data, officials were able to analyze the most conducive methods of restricting travel from infected areas and find the best locations to establish treatment centers in the region. More proactively, the news source suggested that tracking calls to a particular hotline could tell health authorities where Ebola is cropping up in advance.

On the home front, two health care workers in the U.S. have already contracted Ebola, according to Slate, a fact the news source claims is avoidable. Slate suggested that big data could be used to collect large quantities of information regarding how other Ebola patients transmit the disease and how other health care workers are falling victim. Currently, the news source noted that correct containment procedures are less effective than is necessary. Specifically, Slate noted that a conference call with nurses treating Ebola victim Thomas Duncan conducted by National Nurses United revealed that many nurses were unprepared or unaware of proper containment protocols during treatment.