Why you’re not going to get Ebola in the U.S.

[Bob Of Burleson]

By Lenny Bernstein
The Washington Post

The plan to bring two Americans stricken by the Ebola virus back to the United States for treatment has sparked a backlash on social media from some people terrified that the incurable disease will spread here as it has in western Africa.

“Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S.,” Donald Trump tweeted Friday. “Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

This mystifies infectious disease experts, who consider the viruses that cause Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and bird flu much more contagious — and therefore more dangerous to the public. Tranmission of Ebola requires direct contact with an infected person’s blood, vomit or feces during the period that he or she is contagious, something that is extremely unlikely for anyone but health-care workers. The virus is not spread by coughing or sneezing. Nor do Americans bury their own dead family members or friends, as some residents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea must do with Ebola victims.

“There is zero danger to the U.S. public from these [two] cases or the Ebola outbreak in general,” said Amesh Adalja, a member of the public health committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America and an infectious disease doctor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“People who have Ebola are not walking around on the street. They are very, very sick and pretty much confined to a hospital and to a bed,” he added.

But what if you find yourself on an airplane, or in a hospital waiting room, with a symptomatic carrier of Ebola? What if you shake hands with an infected person whose hygiene is not perfect? Couldn’t you contract it that way?

Theoretically, yes, Adalja, acknowledges, but here he quickly notes something that most Americans don’t realize: Lassa fever, another horrifying hemorrhagic disease that kills about 5,000 people in West Africa every year, has been imported into the United States by travelers seven times in recent years, with no known case of transmission.

The most recent case: 2014 in New Jersey, according to Adalja’s blog.

“Ebola will find the Unites States just as inhospitable as lassa fever,” he predicted.

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[LibraryLady]

Hope they are correct....on the disease not spreading.

I don't think the medical people are certain on transmission.......if it is only spread via body fluid contact, why do the health care workers have to wear hazmat suits when dealing with patients? Why the isolation chambers?

[Houston]

patient here in Atlanta. Emory Hospital.
special isolation unit. the other patient still not
returned.

While medical personnel usually do not worry I'm guessing this may be
a volunteer to tend the patient. We'll see what happens.

Maybe ZERO will cancel a golf game and go visit the patient.

[BigTex]

Ironic - we are concerned over the implications of returning two American citizens with Ebola to the United States, but lord knows what diseases we are allowing in through our southern border.

In the name of compassion.

[Trixie]

Ironic - we are concerned over the implications of returning two American citizens with Ebola to the United States, but lord knows what diseases we are allowing in through our southern border.

In the name of compassion.

No compassion needed. I'm concerned about the same thing.

[truep]

But the "Government" says we can't get it so it MUST be true!

[Bob Of Burleson]

Ebola sounds to me a lot like Hepatitis C, which is also transmitted by contact with bodily fluids. Look how many carriers of that we have in the US of A.