Reply to Has Ebola gone airborne? re the US doctor & nurse who have caught it & possible case in Hong Kong

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[quote=Muslima][quote=Anonymous][quote=Muslima]We shouldn't be too concerned about Ebola spreading to the US or other wealthy countries. It's transmitted entirely through exposure to bodily fluids. In settings with Ebola, there's bleeding in a variety of places and the virus is present in those excretions, and people need to come into contact with that to get the virus. The people at risk are the family members who are taking care of sick people, those who are preparing bodies for burial, and health-care workers.

[b]The virus is not transmitted through coughing and sneezing, or through sitting next to someone on a bus, plane  or the like. The idea that the virus can somehow mutate and become more readily transmissible from person to person through coughing or sneezing—those are Hollywood scenarios. The idea that Ebola can become more readily transmissible through casual contact is unrealistic.[/b]

[/quote]

Yes, you could get ill from close contact: sweat is considered a bodily fluid. And it's not clear that aerosolized droplets are not a mode of transmission. As for the idea that a virus mutating is Hollywood fiction, viruses do mutate. How do you think swine flu and avian flu got to be called those names?[/quote]

Yes , some viruses can mutate. not all.  The Ebola virus is composed of ribonucleic acid (RNA). Such a structure unfortunately makes it prone to undergoing rapid genetic changes via one of three mechanisms:
 [quote]1) nucleotide substitutions resulting from purportedly high error rates during RNA synthesis; 2) reassortment of the RNA segments of multipartite genomic viruses; or 3) RNA-RNA recombination between non-segmented RNAs...The Ebola virus can use only the first and the third mechanisms as it has only one segment of RNA by capsid" (the protective coating of proteins). [/quote]

Thus, scientists have asserted that, with regards to concerns about the virus being airborne, the genome (RNA) would have to mutate to the point where the protein capsids are immune to adverse air qualities (i.e. dryness). Furthermore, the genome would have to mutate in a way that allows the virus to be transmittable via respiratory function. Scientists insist that the chances of the virus mutating to this degree are extremely small, despite speculations about the airborne transmission of Ebola Reston. It also would probably need to change structure to allow infection through the respiratory system. There are no exact measures of the rate of mutation in Ebola, but the probability of the required mutations  happening is negligible[/quote]

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