[FreeAtlanta]

The article says it wouldn’t be a good terrorism weapon, but I disagree. What would stop a bunch of deliberately infected people from penetrating Western Population centers and then waiting until they are in the infectious stage to go into crowded areas like sports venues? Or, to blow themselves up like they are know to do, but do it while highly infectious.

This mess has already caused an economic problem for a lot of businesses and countries. We really should quarantine travelers from infected areas, but even that might not be great if terrorist tried some type of relay method - ether live hosts or blood samples (does it survive being frozen?).

I hate the idea of an Ebola vaccine being forced on people. A cure would be much better.

[palmer]

A cure is going to be a lot more difficult than a vaccine. The reason why some victims survive without any special medical treatment is their bodies start to produce the antibodies. In other words they survive just long enough for their immune system to kick in. Most victims do not survive long enough. Medical treatments such as IV antivirals might change that dynamic, but not substantially. Given a vaccine, a primate would create the antibodies beforehand and the effect would last for years.

At the very least we should vaccinate all the gorillas before they are wiped out and that would also be a good test of efficacy. Human safety testing is already underway but since we will never deliberately infect a human, it won't test the ultimate efficacy.

[palmer]

I didn’t answer your other question, but I think terrorism via the relay method is possible and the virus survives pretty well at damp and cold temperatures, on the order of days.