Compared to influenza (or, as my boss puts it, "a disease that can actually start a pandemic"), Ebola is hardly contagious at all. It requires direct contact with infected bodily fluids. It is "highly contagious" in the sense that it takes so few viral particles to cause illness (ID50 is about 10, IIRC)--but not in its mode of transmission. It transmits purely through human behavior--stop the behaviors, and the virus will stop.
I do not downplay this disease at all, although I do think it's rather bizarre that it's getting so much attention. To put some perspective, we have horrible contagious diseases right here in the US. Rabies--also spread by direct contact with infected bodily fluid--is 100% fatal once symptoms appear. Hantavirus has a CFR between 19 and 56%, and is airborne (although not spread from human to human). I freak out any time a rodent gets into my house, because Hanta is endemic in rodents in many parts of the country. Looking outside of the US, there are persistent avian flu infections--H7N9 and H5N1--each with fairly high CFRs (about 30% and 60%, IIRC)--and there is a real danger that through recombination or natural mutation, they will become human to human transmissible. Or some other influenza virus could pop up, highly transmissible, with a high CFR.
No, I am not downplaying Ebola at all. I realize that most people had never heard of it until this year, and the hemorrhagic form is quite dramatic. But it's not the most dangerous disease threat, even in Africa.
Rubbing eyes, nosepicking, not washing after using the lavatory, eating without washing hands, so many human behaviours which are second nature have the potential to infect.
Yes, there are diseases which are more readily transmitted through the air. Few kill quite so well.
H5N1 might mutate to a form easier to transmit H2H, but we've been waiting for that for nearly a decade. Hasn't happened yet. It still prefers the higher temperatures of the lower respiratory tract, and isn't likely to get sneezed around.
Ebola is deadly today, so long as the virus is present in the area and not strictly confined by BSL protocols and PPE.
I have only been following the adventures of the filovirus clan for a decade or so, but it really remains the nasty bug in Africa with the greatest potential to succeed, given the right situation, along with Marburg.
For now, though, play the hand you are dealt.
Unlike Malaria (by far, so far, a greater killer), it does not rely on the cooperation of another species besides those affected to get around, although it appears dogs and pigs may be asymptomatic and yet test seropositive. At least Fido froths at the mouth and acts strange when he has rabies (easily enough avoided by vaccine). Friends have had to do the series--good thing they did, the critter was postive--and it isn't cheap, even though it is not as brutal as it once was.
But now that Ebola has plenty of raw material to work with in urban environments in Africa, it has been having a heyday.
Why does Ebola capture the human imagination?
Thank the shambling masses of the "Zombie Apocalypse" and movies like 28 Days After, (incidentally, although fictional ailments, also transmitted by bodily fluid contact and human--well, sort of--behaviour).
It is easy to ignore the diseases that are mundane to most, the flu (not many recall the Spanish Flu--my grandmother lived past 100 and was a little girl when that went through), Bubonic Plague (finished up the world tour back when), even Hantavirus, (who really breathes crystallized mouse urine, anyway?).
The latter, I share your caution, I have worked in an area which had an outbreak, and declared war on small rodents which are always looking for a warmer place to send the winter. I still wonder if the week I spent with fever and coughing up pistachio green chunks of junk in Northern Montana was related....maybe, maybe not, but I survived by jealously guarding lung capacity.
I actually thought the Christmas I spent debrieding spider bite wounds with a jacknife and a spray bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide was less fun, but only by a smidgen. When I finally saw a doctor, he told me to take more of the antibiotic I had been taking, said he'd never seen anything like that, and asked if he could take pictures. Yeah, whatever, knock yourself out.
Three months later, the last one finally scabbed over and I knew I was on the mend. Silver Chloride ointment provided the greatest relief from the sensation like someone putting a cigarette out on the bite site.
So, I'll pick and chose what I'd least like to see in the wild.
I'm less afraid of H5N1 (don't live with poultry), abide no rodents in my buildings or temporary quarters, and stay clear of people with the sniffles.
But bleeding out of every orifice just doesn't appeal to me. I suspect that may be a part of the 'fascination' people have, the same reason plane crash videos get hits on YouTube.
As a practical matter, no, I'm not afraid of Ebola at the present, but only because at the moment the likelihood of encountering the virus where I live or work is fairly low.
I think I have a pretty good handle on how it can be caught if present, and that includes fomites, and understanding it lessens fear.
In other venues, yes, even in North Dakota, there are contingents of foreign workers, some of whom are from Africa. Signs of sickness are enough to get me to keep my distance, even though that crew has been in the States for a couple of months now. Probability of a problem is so low as to be off the charts, but I keep up with who has been visiting who...
That does not leave me complacent, and possibilities are something I have always dealt in, though not to generate fear, but enthusiasm.
In this case, I am not enthusiastic at the possibilities, but I need to recognize them--failure to do so by the agencies which could have limited the outbreak months ago has allowed the mess in Africa to develop to this extent.
Failure to do so here could allow the same, given the disease in the wild. So, preventing that situation as much as possible is paramount here.