"Ebola researcher says he would not rule out possibility that the virus spreads through air in tight quarters"
Some Ebola experts worry virus may spread more easily than assumed - LA Times
DAVID WILL MAN 10-7-14
- Ebola researcher says he would not rule out possibility that the virus spreads through air in tight quarters
- 'There are too many unknowns here,' a virologist says of how Ebola may spread
- Ebola researcher says he thinks there is a chance asymptomatic people could spread the virus
U.S. officials leading the fight against history's worst outbreak of Ebola have said they know the ways the virus is spread and how to stop it. They say that unless an air traveler from disease-ravaged West Africa has a fever of at least 101.5 degrees or other symptoms, co-passengers are not at risk.
"At this point there is zero risk of transmission on the flight," Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said after a Liberian man who flew through airports in Brussels and Washington was diagnosed with the disease last week in Dallas.
Other public health officials have voiced similar assurances, saying Ebola is spread only through physical contact with a symptomatic individual or their bodily fluids. "Ebola is not transmitted by the air. It is not an airborne infection," said Dr. Edward Goodman of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where the Liberian patient remains in critical condition.
Yet some scientists who have long studied Ebola say such assurances are premature — and they are concerned about what is not known about the strain now on the loose. It is an Ebola outbreak like none seen before, jumping from the bush to urban areas, giving the virus more opportunities to evolve as it passes through multiple human hosts.
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