From USAToday.com:
Ebola only a plane ride away from USA
EBOLA VIRUS RAPIDLY SPREADING IN WEST AFRICA
Since it was detected in March, the number of cases attributed to Ebola in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stands at 1,201, including 672 deaths. Two U.S. doctors contracted the virus while trying to stop the spread of the infectious disease.
Ebola could easily arrive in the USA on board a plane, but wouldn’t spread far, experts say.
The growing Ebola outbreak in West Africa serves as a grim reminder that deadly viruses are only a plane ride away from the USA, health experts say.
The outbreak is the largest and deadliest on record, with more than 670 deaths and more than 1,200 infections in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fatality rates for Ebola have been as high as 90% in past outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization.
The virus — which has an incubation period of a few days to three weeks — could easily travel to the USA through infected travelers, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
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“A case very well could fly out of Africa, only to be detected in some distant country,” says Osterholm, who served as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration on bioterrorism.
I have written about this here and here and here and here and here.
Now, Ebola may be “one plane trip (away) now.”I wrote about that three months ago, way back on April 7th.
Highly populated cities are areas of huge first potential impact.
BZ
