tet68 :" My horror is to see this get wild in the first world.
The transportation that makes the first world what it is
could be the vector that decimates the world population."
Exactly true.
Most people forget that an airline provided transportation for an African traveler infected with Ebola,
who brought the disease into the US several years ago.
After a couple of healthcare workers contracted the disease
the CDC upgraded the healthcare workers hazmat suits and facial protection.
I recall seeing an article approximately 5 days ago that Russia closed one of its borders with China
when a Chinese national, traveling by commercial airline, was diagnosed with Ebola symptoms.
Realize that cabin air and air pressure in airlines is constantly being recirculated, thus possibley infecting the entire plane.
Other than that one article, I have seen nothing to indicate confirmation or denial regarding the medical evaluation of this incident,
nor the current situation at the Russian border with Mongolia.
Ebola is a bloodborne pathogen, not a respiratory (airborne) pathogen. No pathogen has ever been known to change its mode of transmission. Unless someone is spraying bloody bodily fluids into the plane’s air handling systems, it is highly unlikely that Ebola would spread via the cabin air.
If the Ebola passenger were symptomatic and had physical contact with the passenger next to him, then there is a possibility that the adjacent passenger could get Ebola.
I seriously wish the author of The Hot Zone would have never written that book. It is responsible for more misinformation about Ebola. There are diseases right here in the US that are just as deadly (if not more deadly) than Ebola, and at least one spreads through an aerosol route—but no one freaks out about those.