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Ebola Transmission Through Cough Possible, But Not Likely: Experts

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Thu, 2015-02-19 19:45 — mike kraft

HEALTHDAY NEWS   by Dennis Thompson                                                                 Feb. 19, 2015

The cough of very sick Ebola patients could be as dangerous as their vomit or diarrhea to those around them, a new report suggests.

However, the same experts also cautioned that this does not mean that the deadly virus could spread quickly through the air, as illnesses like measles or flu do.

The report "shouldn't be something that alarms the public into believing that Ebola could become airborne in the way that measles is," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security.

"This paper doesn't say that," said Adalja, who was not involved in the study.

Read complete story:
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/topics/HealthDay696675_20150219_Ebola_Transmission_Through_Cough_Possible__But_Not_Likely__Experts.html

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Transmission of Ebola Viruses: What We Know and What We Do Not Know

MBIO AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY                                                       Feb. 19, 2015

Link to the study.

http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/2/e00137-15

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
Africa
Guinea
Conakry
Liberia
Sierra Leone
General Topic Tags: 
Contagion
Disease
Health
Science
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Problem
Groups this Group Post belongs to: 
Africa Resilience Initiative
Global Health
Guinea Resilience System
- Private group -

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Mon, 2015-02-23 20:24 — mike kraft

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC  The Loom Blog    byCarl Zimmer                                 Feb. 22, 2015

Back in September, when the West African Ebola outbreak was getting worse with every passing week, a lot of people began to worry that the virus could spread by air. And even if it couldn’t spread by air yet, they worried that it might be on the verge of mutating into an airborne form.

When I talked to virus experts, they saw little ground for either concern. The epidemiology of the outbreak, like previous ones, had the sort of pattern you’d expect from a virus that spreads mainly through contact with body fluids. A look at the evolutionary history of viruses indicates that a fluid-adapted virus would be unlikely to switch to going airborne with just a couple mutations. (I wrote in the New York Times about these conversations here and here.)

The anxiety over airborne Ebola has faded. The outbreak itself has dwindled down dramatically, although driving it down to zero may prove hard. But a new “Opinion/Hypothesis” piece published in the journal mBio, called “Transmission of Ebola Viruses: What We Know and Do Not Know,” has breathed some new life into the old worry.

Read complete article.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/22/is-it-worth-imagining-airborne-ebola/

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