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Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  I'm not aware of any scientific findings or even any theory that says if a nurse were exposed to the Ebola virus from working with 300 patients for a month in West Africa that when she reached America, she is more likely to get sick and infect than she would be if Nina Pham or Dr. Spencer exposed her to their bodily fluids after they began vomiting, having diarrhea.
And unless you have a heavy enough viral load to cause you to be very sick and producing fluids that get into someone else's body, you cannot spread the disease. And even then it's not 100% infectious if your viral load is low enough for another's immune system to overcome, aka Thomas Duncan's family, who all remain well, despite being around him for two days after he was sick, vomiting and having diarrhea, sweating on his partner in bed.
Otherwise, all of those medical doctors and workers who've been coming and going from West Africa and those 10,000 cases they've cared for there would have long ago infected many of us as they have all gone about America on their return.
Common sense monitoring for temperature and symptoms of those close contacts, including their nurses and doctors, of Ebola patients has worked perfectly so far, so what's changed? Oh, I forgot - NYC got a case - that's what! And panic ensued!  |
I wouldn't call it panic.
Read this article on the WHO website. They are referring to local medical personnel who have been infected and died (120 dead/240 infected), but some of what they are saying must apply to foreigners who are there to help treat ebola patients:
WHO | Unprecedented number of medical staff infected with Ebola
From the article:
"The loss of so many doctors and nurses has made it difficult for WHO to secure support from sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff."
The larger than ever outbreak in Africa is over a year in the making. Look how long it took for a case like Duncan to arrive in the US. Epidemics and pandemics start somewhere. I would rather error on the side of caution.