Ebola Gets a Foothold

The Centers for Disease Control has verified that a nurse who treated the index case of Ebola virus (the one who was turned away from the ER with a diagnosis of sinus infection) has fallen ill, possibly as a result of “violations of protocol” or inadvertent exposure to body fluids.  We hope that the nurse will be able to tell us that a significant exposure occurred; if there was no exposure that the nurse was aware of, that makes it all the more dangerous.

The range of potentially ugly outcomes has suddenly expanded beyond a “few million” Africans to two people in the United States (Dallas, Texas, to be precise, an ironic location.)  Surely, if Ebola hasn’t already spread more rapidly, it isn’t that infectious?  Or is it?

All the contactees of those two patients will need to be followed; twenty-one days is the maximum incubation time.  The number of cases that appear over the next few weeks will tell us a great deal about just how infectious the Ebola virus is.  Drum roll please…