Ebola Zaire is the only strain that has been known to go airborne and that was ONE test and has not been independently verified.
Now for your regularly scheduled panic...
That's only mildly reassuring. There's also stories in this outbreak of people who hugged non-symptomatic friends who were health workers, and got sick themselves. Sweat is a body fluid.
When someone comes into the hospital, very sick, and they start the interview/exam process, they don't suspect ebola until they ask where the patient has been. By that time, multiple exposures may have taken place.
The Reston strain was airborne, but only infected lower primates. It made for a heck of a book sorting that out.
Zaire ebola virus is not a strain, it is a sub-species (EBOV). The virus manifest during the current outbreak is a strain; moreover we don't have to guess at the case fatality rate for this strain, it is derived easily from the case data and has consistently been around 56%. The Canadian observation was not well controlled and there could be other explanations. BTW, the Reston ebola virus (RESTV) sub-species has similar anectdotal evidence for airborne transmission, but again it was an observation made under poorly controlled conditions that permitted other avenues of infection (cross contamination).
Actually, Ebola Reston is the only strain that we know has gone airborne, but it only infected monkeys (quickly, actually, and completely - killed them all.)
Zaire ran via fluids. It burned itself out for the most part. The case was pretty well documented in ‘The Hot Zone’ by Richard Preston.
This is why Reston scared the bejeebers out of the CDC at the time. It happened in a suburb of DC.
I think this new strain goes in one of two ways that make this a more dangerous strain:
1. Via parasites (lice, mosquitoes, bedbugs)
2. Aerosol
On top of that, I think its contagious somewhere inside the ‘incubation’ period, and can be transmitted prior to the onset of symptoms.
It’s the only way to explain how all those people died from contact with the patient that boarded that communal cab. No way in this life they would have let her board if she was presenting symptoms. Not a chance. All five riders died.
Captain Jenks is out of the bag.
(40,000 men and women every day)
(40,000 men and women every day)
(Don’t fear the reaper)
(Baby take my hand)
(Don’t fear the reaper)
“Ebola Zaire is the only strain that has been known to go airborne and that was ONE test and has not been independently verified.
Now for your regularly scheduled panic...”
Not to question either the implied premise of the above, but are you aware of any published tests of airborne transmission of any other strain?
Sources, please.
Thank you.