And people saying you have to eat the bodily fluids are "showing common sense" ? ALL your cred goes out the window with that bit of histrionics
All I said about Clancy's books was that he wrote about a scenario that was possible, for the virus to mutate to lesser strength,which if you were paying attention instead of in attack mode you would recognize only went to bolster the "we are in little to no danger " position ,are you saying the virus can't do that? What is more ,if you know anything about Clancy you then know that his books were very thoroughly researched and it was strongly suspected he had a mole inside the CIA who gave him info about weaponry and threat scenarios , i.e. biological warfare. Again that is not to say anything more than WHAT HE outlined is possible which you did not refute, you attacked the source instead of the substance,which I'm beginning to notice a pattern of.
NOW , once more you have still based all your contentions upon YOUR testimony of what "peer reviews " would do to the contentions of the sources of the article ,one of which IS an admission in poster form from the CDC.
So far you've brought nothing but what you say others say ,criticized other sources and documented NONE , and made a pretty outlandish claim about what we would have to do to contract the disease ,FAR more outlandish than the idea that if an infected person ,post symptom, sneezes on you ,you are in significant danger, but in your second post I believe you admitted it was possible even though you used the ludicrous eating the fluids meme here is what you said
"For you to catch it that way, you'd have to be near someone who had the virus, then they would have to hack up a bit wet cough, and then you'd have to touch the mucus and spit and then put it in your mouth."
Take a count how many times you touch your face tomorrow ,pass a finger under you nose , eat a bag of chips or a candy bar without washing your hands first .
There are a myriad of ways to pass the virus from an infected contagious person ,every member of my family has had at least two colds since I got my transplant, I've gotten one and until a week ago I'd gotten none ,I remarked to my lead Dr. about it and he said ,it's very likely because you wash your hands a lot ,which I do about 30 times a day.
Whether people need to be alarmed about this or at a higher state of awareness is up to them ,but thus far you have proven none of your negatives , if an Ebola patient sneezes on you ,just don't eat it you'll be fine
US/World
How Do You Get Ebola Virus? Ways You Can (And Can't) Contract The Deadly Disease
Oct 6, 2014 06:28 PM By
Dana Dovey@danadovey
Simply being in the same room as an Ebola patient is not enough to get you infected. Photo courtesy of Reuters
Comment
How do you get Ebola? I’m sure this question is on everyone’s mind as the virus rapidly becomes an international health emergency. It’s important not to let hysteria get the best of you because, as The Washington Post so eloquently put it, “Fear can spread even faster than the virus.” Ebola is serious and extremely deadly, but like all viruses, the number one risk factor of contracting it is actually coming in contact with someone who has the virus.
How You Can Become Infected
Direct Contact With A Symptomatic Patient
In order to get Ebola, you have to come into direct contact with bodily fluids of a person who is infected with the virus and already symptomatic. Ebola is caused by a family of viruses called
filoviridae, and like all viruses in this family, can only be spread through person-to-person transmission. “For the average person, the risk is low,” a U.S. doctor who specializes in infectious disease but preferred to remain anonymous because he/she did not have permission to speak with the media, told Medical Daily. “Urban health care workers may be a little bit more at risk, but I don’t think your average community clinic is.”
According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Ebola is spread by direct contact with blood and bodily fluids, including but not limited to: urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen. Also, not all these bodily fluids are as potent as others. For example, while blood and feces are usually quite abundant with the virus, other fluids such as saliva and sweat are much less likely to carry the virus.
To become infected, these fluids must enter your body through either broken skin or through a mucous membrane, such as those found in the eyes, nose, or mouth. “If they don’t have a fever, they are not shedding the virus,” the doctor told Medical Daily.
The Dead
It is unknown how long the Ebola virus can remain alive on dead bodies, but experts predict that it may takes months before the virus is completely deactivated on an infected corpse. This is why so much emphasis has been placed on immediate disposal of contaminated cadavers.
Contaminated Objects and Materials
Another unfortunate aspect of Ebola is that the virus is quite efficient at living outside of the human body. This is why it’s possible to get the virus from non-organic materials. You can get Ebola from infected objects, such as needles or syringes, that have been contaminated with the infected bodily fluids of an Ebola patient.
NPR reported that the virus can remain alive outside a body for weeks, but environmental conditions such as heat and oxygen weaken the virus. Sweat transferred onto inanimate objects is also far less likely but not completely ruled out. “It’s not zero percent but it's low. It depends on the length of time. They did not find the virus in the environment from people touching objects the majority of the time,” explained the infectious disease specialist to Medical Daily.
How You Cannot Become Infected
Food
The only cases where it's known to be spread by food is through the handling of infected raw bush meat. “If it’s cooked or smoked, there is essentially zero risk,” Daniel Baush, an associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, told
The Washington Post. “You have to have contact with the relatively fresh blood or bodily fluids of the animal.”
Although illegal, bush meat does continue to be sold in and outside of Africa. Still, as Baush explained, the preparer is the only one in danger of bush meat contamination, since the meat sold abroad has already been dried or prepared. Due to this, it’s fair to conclude that, in general, traditional African dishes pose next to zero threat.
Water
Ebola is also not spread through water. According to NPR, the virus is deactivated within minutes of being in water. Dr. Alan Schmaljohn, a virologist at the University of Maryland, explained to NPR that this is because, unlike bacteria, viruses are not as resilient outside of the host. Each Ebola virus is encased in an envelope taken from the outer surface of a membrane of a host cell, and water does not provide a rich enough environment to allow this. This means that water supplies are in no danger or accidental (or intentional) Ebola contamination.
A Plane or Other Closed Airspaces
Ebola is not spread through the air, so merely being in the same room as an Ebola patient is of no consequence. Ebola can only spread through water droplets too large to become airborne, NPR reported. An infected individual would have to sneeze directly in your face, and their fluids would need to
enter your eyes, mouth, or nose in order for there to be even the slightest chance of contamination. As for traveling; “If you’re sitting next to them or you're touching them — but usually you don’t touch people on a plane — it’s less likely,” the infectious disease doctor explained.
While the chances of being infected by Ebola on a plane or through another method of travel are not exactly zero, they are extremely low. In
1995, researchers followed 173 family members of 27 infected people. Seventy-eight of those had no direct contact with the infected member and had only been exposed to the virus through the air. None of these family members contracted Ebola.
Touch
Merely touching an infected individual, as previously explained by the infectious disease doctor, carries an extremely low risk for Ebola transmission, and as mentioned, the virus needs to spread from bodily fluids to open wounds or mucous membranes. Traditional burial habits in many of the infected areas include practices such as using a common bowl for ritual hand-washing and kissing the corpse’s face,
The Daily Beast reported. Also, in many cultures the body is buried dangerously close to the deceased’s family. It is these traditions, not mere skin-to-skin touching, that has so quickly accelerated the viruses spread
