As
the death toll from Ebola reaches 3,800, experts are warning that the
virus could mutate and become airborne, meaning that it could be caught
by breathing it in.
The
public is being told by health officials that the virus that causes
Ebola cannot be transmitted through the air and can only be spread
through direct contact with bodily fluids – blood, sweat, vomit, feces,
urine, saliva or semen – of an infected person who is showing symptoms.
However, several leading Ebola researchers claim that the virus mutating and spreading through the air should not be ruled out.
As the death toll from Ebola reaches 3,800, experts are warning that the virus could mutate and become airborne
Virus
expert Charles L. Bailey, who in 1989 helped the American government
tackle an outbreak of Ebola among rhesus monkeys being used for
research, told the LA Times:
'We know for a fact that the virus occurs in sputum and no one has ever
done a study [disproving that] coughing or sneezing is a viable means
of transmitting.
'Unqualified assurances that Ebola is not spread through the air are "misleading".'
Dr
C J Peters, who has undertaken research into Ebola for America's
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the paper: 'We just
don't have the data to exclude it [becoming airborne].'
Meanwhile
virologist Dr Philip K Russell, a former head of the U.S Army's Medical
Research and Development Command, told the paper: 'I see the reasons to
dampen down public fears. But scientifically, we're in the middle of
the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in
man.... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't.'
In
September, Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious
Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, writing in
the New York Times,
said experts who believe that Ebola could become airborne are loathed
to discuss their concerns in public, for fear of whipping up hysteria.
Discussing
the possible future course of the current outbreak, he said: '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.'
The public is being told by health
officials that the virus that causes Ebola cannot be transmitted through
the air and can only be spread through direct contact with bodily
fluids
Dr Osterholm warns viruses similar to Ebola are notorious for replicating and reinventing themselves.
It
means the virus that first broke out in Guinea in February may be very
different to the one now invading other parts of West Africa.
Pointing
to the example of the H1N1 influenza virus that saw bird flu sweep the
globe in 2009, Dr Osterholm said: 'If certain mutations occurred, it
would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting
Ebola.'
Dr Osterholm said public health officials, while discussing the possibility in private, are reluctant to air their concerns.
Virus expert Charles L. Bailey said unqualified assurances that Ebola is not spread through the air are 'misleading'
'They don't want to be accused of screaming "Fire!" in a crowded theater - as I'm sure some will accuse me of doing.
'But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic.'
He called for the United Nations to mobilise medical, public health and humanitarian aid to 'smother the epidemic'.
The
chair of the UK's Health Protection Agency, Professor David Heymann of
the London School of Hygiene of Tropical Medicine, said it is impossible
to predict how any virus will mutate.
He
said scientists across the world do not know enough about genetics to
be able to say how the Ebola virus will change over time.
He
told MailOnline: 'No one can predict what will happen with the mutation
of the virus. I would like to see the evidence that this could become a
respiratory virus.'
The
first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. died on Wednesday despite
intense but delayed treatment, and the government announced it was
expanding airport examinations to guard against the spread of the deadly
disease.
The
checks will include taking the temperatures of hundreds of travelers
arriving from West Africa at five major American airports.
The
new screenings will begin Saturday at New York's JFK International
Airport and then expand to Washington Dulles and the international
airports in Atlanta, Chicago and Newark. An estimated 150 people per day
will be checked, using high-tech thermometers that don't touch the
skin.
The
White House said the fever checks would reach more than 9 of 10
travelers to the U.S. from the three heaviest-hit countries - Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Guinea.
President
Barack Obama called the measures 'really just belt and suspenders' to
support protections already in place. Border Patrol agents now look for
people who are obviously ill, as do flight crews, and in those cases the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is notified.
As
of Wednesday, Ebola has killed about 3,800 people in West Africa and
infected at least 8,000, according to the World Health Organization.
A
medical official with the U.N. Mission in Liberia who tested positive
for Ebola arrived in the German city of Leipzig on Thursday to be
treated at a local clinic with specialist facilities, authorities said.
The
unidentified medic infected in Liberia is the second member of the U.N.
mission, known as UNMIL, to contract the virus. The first died on
September 25. He is the third Ebola patient to arrive in Germany for
treatment.
The
virus has taken an especially devastating toll on health care workers,
sickening or killing more than 370 of them in the hardest-hit countries
of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - places that already were short on
doctors and nurses.
There
are no approved medications for Ebola, so doctors have tried
experimental treatments in some cases, including drugs and blood
transfusions from others who have recovered from Ebola.
The survivor's blood could carry antibodies for the disease that will help a patient fight off the virus.
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