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somenameformetoday at 6:22 PM3 repliesview on HN

Ebola isn't like most people think. It isn't airborne, isn't respiratory and requires direct contact with blood/semen/feces/etc to spread. It's also only known to be contagious once symptoms are present. The risk of a global outbreak is very low.

Africa has a large array of unique circumstances that make it much more 'viral' there, including various cultural funerary rituals that involve contact with corpses that can have extremely high viral loads, bushmeat consumption/processing (ebola can spread from animals to humans), as well as all the more stereotypical (and accurate nonetheless) reasons as well that make it particularly dangerous for healthcare workers there.

It's not entirely clear how it could spread uncontrollably outside of Africa.


Replies

unsupp0rtedtoday at 7:48 PM

But surely once somebody explains that kissing (yes, literally) the deceased corpse of an ebola patient is a bad idea they'll stop doing that

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JumpCrisscrosstoday at 7:16 PM

> Ebola isn't like most people think

Bunga bunga or whatever isn’t classic ebola. And it’s being given an expanding substrate on which to evolve.

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dyauspitrtoday at 6:32 PM

Viruses are viruses though. Becoming airborne and less deadly (like this current strain) would be a death knell for the world. The longer you let it hang around the longer it has time to adapt. This is why HIV medication is prescribed so overwhelmingly. One of the main goals is to stop all replication immediately or it rather quickly “figures out” how to get past the drug.

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