Executive Summary

• Who is at risk of contracting ebola?
• What are the odds of the current string becoming more virulent?
• The worrisome responses governments are considering
• Should a pandemic occur, here's what you need to survive it

If you have not yet read Part 1: Ebola! available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Those At Greatest Risk

Those at greatest risk of catching Ebola have close and prolonged contact with Ebola victims. Caregivers seem particularly at risk probably because of their proximity (closeness) and the length of time they are in contact.

One measure of how much we need to fear a particular virus is how effective it is in crossing hosts. Some viruses are really incredible at it, such as measles which infects an average of 18 other people from each sick person.

The chart below puts Ebola at the very low end of infectivity:

(Source)

There are a host of complicating factors at work in determining just how infective a virus is, and one of those factors is whether or not you can look at the person while they are in the transmissive phase and visibly see that they are sick. If you can, you may avoid them or take extra precautions.

Again, the Ebola victims are in obviously bad shape by the time they are in the infective stage.

However, I think we're going to have to nudge Ebola over to the right a bit on that above chart because it now seems probable that the mode of infection for this current strain is a whole lot easier than initially thought.

The CDC still claims that the only way to catch Ebola is by direct contact with fluids from an infected person.

However, it's been known since 2012 that direct contact is not necessary, as this study rather conclusively proved:

Sept – 2012 Ebola viruses (EBOV) cause often fatal hemorrhagic fever in several species of simian primates including human. While fruit bats are considered natural reservoir, involvement of other species in EBOV transmission is unclear.

In 2009, Reston-EBOV was the first EBOV detected in swine with indicated transmission to humans.