The Ebola virus can be transmitted through the air to start

Experts fear that the virus Ebola can be spread through the air, not only through the direct exchange body fluid. In this case, the epidemic may be catastrophic.

Ebola virus

Until recently, people said that Ebola virus transmitted only by direct contact of a healthy person and a patient - at exchange of body fluids, ie by sputum, blood and other secretions. it many times reduces the potential scale of the epidemic, but now experts say likelihood that air transmission is not excluded.

Several researchers area of ​​the disease suggest that virus Ebola   mutates and the next generation of this severe disease may be much more dangerous for mankind. So an expert in virology Charles Bailey, who in 1989 helped the US government to fight outbreak of Ebola virus among rhesus macaques, told the LA Times: "We know as a fact that the virus occurs in the sputum, but no one He has not proved that coughing and sneezing is the only way to transfer virus. Persistent allegations that the Ebola virus is transmitted only when direct contact and spreads through the air, not groundless! "

I agree with him and Dr. CJ Peters, who conducted research on the Ebola virus for the Centre for the Control and Disease prevention. "We have no evidence that could exclude the possibility of transmission of the virus through the air, "- he said. Meanwhile, virologist Philip Russell, the former head of the US Army Medical and Research Center, said: "I see that the authorities want to reduce fears in society, but from a scientific point of view, we are in the midst of the first experimental multiple serial transmission of the virus among humans. And only God knows, how the disease will be after that. I personally do not know. "

So far, the Ebola virus killed more than 3,800 people in West Africa, it infected about 8000 people. The first sick and the dead were in the United States and Europe. (READ MORE)

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