Replies

The problem is that early symptoms are similar to many other flu-like symptoms and might therefore not be immediately recognized. That’s one issue. Another is that, while not airborne, there is the issue of fomites, which are viral particles left on surfaces through human contact. A contagious person uses a door handle. Others that follow and touch that handle are at risk. I also hear that WHO was considering revising the period of contagiousness, to include some pre-symptomatic period... but I can’t find that link at the moment.

The reason it took several months for the Ebola outbreak to even be recognized was the non-specific nature of the early symptoms. That, and Ebola had never been seen in Guinea before. Malaria and Lassa are both common there, and have similar symptoms--IIRC, health officials thought they were dealing with Lassa, which can also have a hemorrhagic presentation.

The transmissibility of Ebola through fomites is an open question. The studies that would determine how long the virus remains infectious on various surfaces under various conditions have not been done. I have not heard anything about a revision of thought about the contagious period.

While this article isn’t the one I had recalled, it does talk a bit about pre-symptomatic contagiousness.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/07/27/ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-some-basic-information/

I’ll keep looking.

Aha. The place that the pre-symptomatic contagiousness was noted has been removed from the website, but was originally found at

http://preventebola.com/public/index.php/news/54-cdc-changes-criteria-for-ebola-transmission-admits-being-within-3-feet-or-in-same-room-can-cause-infection

While that page no longer exists, it was, while it was up, cited by many other websites. If you google this phrase:

cdc-changes-criteria-for-ebola-transmission-admits-being-within-3-feet-or-in-same-room-can-cause-infection

which was basically the name of the page, you will find a host of reputable sites pointing to this page. So what happened? Was the original posting in error, and removed? Or was I removed for other (politically correct) reasons?