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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. is trying to reconsider its approach to Ebola patients after several reports suggest that the fatal virus could be airborne. Many people in the population are extremely afraid with the fact that they can acquire the deadly disease, while more than 8,000 people have been already affected since its outbreak in Guinea in late 2013. The people are even more afraid today after the news reveal that two Dallas nurse have been infected with the virus after taking care of Thomas Duncan, the first confirmed case of the deadly infection...

When CDC Director Tim Frieden first announced, just a week ago and very erroneously, that he was "confident we will stop Ebola in its tracks here in the United States", he hardly anticipated facing the double humiliation of not only having the first person-to-person transmission of Ebola on US soil taking place within a week, but that said transmission would impact a supposedly protected healthcare worker. He certainly did not anticipate the violent public reaction that would result when, instead of taking blame for another epic CDC blunder, one which made many wonder if last night's Walking Dead season premier...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The first case of Ebola transmitted between patients in America has experts across the country reviewing safety protocols. At Purdue University, Dr. David Sanders has been studying the virus since 2003 – specifically how this particular Zaire strain of Ebola enters human cells. While the virus has thus far only been shown to be transferred via bodily fluids, Sanders argues that it could become airborne. "It can enter the lung from the airway side," Sanders said. "So this argues that Ebola is primed to have respiratory transmission. "We need to be taking this into consideration," he...

What is the difference b/w an airborne pathogen and everything else?

The circle of people who have come into contact with Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan is rapidly expanding, jumping from 18 to 80 early today and then leaping to 100, according to Texas health officials.

Health Canada apparently changing the facts about the nature of the Ebola virus.

Exclusive: Anthony Banbury, chief of the UN's Ebola mission, says there is a chance the deadly virus could mutate to become infectious through the air. There is a ‘nightmare’ chance that the Ebola virus could become airborne if the epidemic is not brought under control fast enough, the chief of the UN’s Ebola mission has warned. Anthony Banbury, the Secretary General’s Special Representative, said that aid workers are racing against time to bring the epidemic under control, in case the Ebola virus mutates and becomes even harder to deal with. “The longer it moves around in human hosts in the...

The idea of the Ebola virus becoming airborne is not far-fetched as its ability to enter cells that line the trachea and lungs has been shown under controlled laboratory conditions, a Purdue Univ. virus expert says. David Sanders, an associate professor of biological sciences who has studied the Zaire strain of Ebola virus that is responsible for the current outbreak in West Africa, says the possibility of the virus becoming airborne should not be discounted. ...

As the Ebola outbreak rampages through Africa scientists are privately concerned the virus could mutate to become airborne, one expert has warned. So far 2,300 people have lost their lives to the disease with more than 4,300 cases recorded in West Africa in the last six months - the worst outbreak since the disease was discovered in 1976. The World Health Organisation has warned there may be thousands of new cases each week in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria by early October. Fifteen countries could be hit by the outbreak - putting the lives of 22 million people at risk,...

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents...

THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge...

A study in the journal Science, released last week, shows that the Ebola strain spreading across Western Africa has undergone a surprisingly high amount of genetic drift during the current outbreak. Experts say the mutations could eventually make the virus harder to diagnose and perhaps treat with a new therapeutic, should one come along. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, I wrote that in response to the crisis, the Obama administration has stressed that the disease is unlikely to spread inside America. We will certainly see cases diagnosed here, and perhaps even experience some isolated clusters of disease. For now, though,...

Rapidly Mutating Ebola Renders Diagnostic Tests Inaccurate - AKA: You May Have a New Strain of Ebola and Test Negative An international team of scientists — some of whom succumbed to the virus during the course of their research — has sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients in Sierra Leone, creating a valuable trove of genetic data for scientists and health care workers struggling to bring the growing outbreak under control. ... "We were able to sequence and analyze our samples with about a 10-day turnaround. This is unprecedented, as earlier studies have usually taken many months with...

The public has been misinformed regarding human-to-human transmission of Ebola. Assurances that Ebola can be transmitted only through direct contact with bodily fluids need to be seriously scrutinized in the wake of the West Africa outbreak. The Canadian Health Department states that airborne transmission of Ebola is strongly suspected and the CDC admits that Ebola can be transmitted in situations where there is no physical contact between people, i.e.: via direct airborne inhalation into the lungs or into the eyes, or via contact with airborne fomites which adhere to nearby surfaces. That helps explain why 81 doctors, nurses and other...