We ran an experiment in All Mine. All 5 nations started research during the first hour. We then left the region completely alone.
After 6 hours the infection peaked at about 10% of the regional population. After 18 hours everyone was cured.
The key point here is that getting everyone on research early makes a huge difference. This plan only works if you can get a very high turnout of researchers, which obviously gets harder when you have more players involved. Nonetheless, I though it was interesting enough to share.