What if we are wrong?
I have always had a fascination with germs and infection control. So beyond reading up on it far more than any normal person ever should, I also found a way to get paid to research the topic by writing about it for publication. Believe it or not, in some circles I’m known as the go-to person when you need an article about infection control or hospital acquired infections (HAIs).
This morbid fascination of mine carries out as I follow the spread of the Ebola epidemic.
Here’s what we know. The virus is spread through:
- Direct contact (broken skin or mucous membranes in for example the nose, eyes or mouth) with blood or bodily fluids (urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola.
- Objects such as needles or syringes that have been contaminated with the virus.
- Infected animals.
It is not spread:
- By a person who doesn’t have a fever or other symptoms. Ebola incubates in an infected person for two to 21 days.
- Casual contact. Sitting next to someone on a plane is unlikely to transmit the disease.
- By breathing the air, like influenza and tuberculosis.
The reality is that the risk of spreading Ebola through airline travel is low. Travelers are screened before boarding and the disease is not transmitted when an infected person has no symptoms.
Knowing all this as fact, I still ask, What if?
What if screening misses someone who is symptomatic and they get on a plane?
What if that person gets sick in the plane bathroom?
What if that plane doesn’t get cleaned as well as it should be? (Infection control standards at hospitals are far more stringent than the average top-to-bottom cleaning of an airplane.)
What if we are wrong?
