If it is a small van and they were packed in there, touching, exchanging money, it need not be airborne.

Close contact with an ill person can transmit the virus. You don't have to be exposed to their blood, stool or vomit get infected.

came in contact with her sweat and saliva?

I find that hard to believe unless they were huddled in a ball.

especially add to that she is already ill.

If someone with a cut on their skin touched where she touched it's possible they might become infected, or if they touched her sweat and then touched their nose or mouth... lots of pathways. It is frightening.

Close quarters is an enemy in a situation like this....

The word "matatu" is being translated as "communal taxi", which is probably giving some people the impression this was like taking a cab a few blocks.

This was a cross country trip, and is is pretty common for people to share food and drink during these arduous rides over poor roads for hours.

Thank you.

No one has ever said only blood, vomit or stool is infectious. Their perspiration, minute droplets emitted when coughing or sneezing, etc., and it's the most wildly infectious disease there is. Just brushing up against an infected person with symptoms who has a slight sheen of perspiration can transmit the disease. Just an infected person with symptoms brushing their hand against their mouth or nose, then handling money that is given to someone else can cause transmition. Hell, people catch the common cold that way. The people that treat Ebola patients don't suit up in full space suit gear just because it's fun... the minutest bodily fluid transmissions that you can't even see are plenty to infect.

I agree, but that's not what we're being told.

We're being told the exact opposite...that his isn't anywhere nearly as infectious as a cold or flu virus.

That is my whole point.

Maybe the wrong word is airborn...more like aerosolized. Which isn't a whole lot more comforting.

Ever since the word "Ebola" first became known ages ago there was never any question about how easily transmitted it was and how. It's THE most infectious disease there is. But it's not airborne... infection occurs when even the most invisible minute particles of an infected person with symptoms can easily and commonly cause transmission. The Ebola virus is only transmitted through direct contact with an infected person or their bodily fluids.

For example, say I am infected with Ebola and I have symptoms. Because I'm in Africa it's bloody hot, and I also have a fever, so I'm hotter than non-fevered people in the same area I'm in, and even if not in a running sweat I'd at the least have the slightest dampness of perspiration. That perspiration is GOING to be on my bare hands because hands also sweat. And with my ever so slightly moist hands I hand you money to pay you for driving me somewhere, and you accept that money into YOUR bare hand. Now you are also likely to be infected because of a slight torn cuticle or like most people you don't scrub your hands the moment someone hands you money nor do you lock up that money in an airtight box. That transmission was so seemingly benign, but THAT's how wildly infectious the disease is, and it was NOT transmitted by air but by ever so tiny minute bodily fluids that neither of us could have even seen which is NOT airborne NOR aerosolized but direct contact with bodily fluid... just bodily fluid that is so minute it's not even noticeable with the naked eye.

Other diseases contracted through bodily fluids are just so much less potent to cause infection that it requires much more and more noticeable contact with bodily fluids, and there is where I think your confusion is. Because these other diseases aren't nearly so potent as Ebola it takes more bodily fluid and perhaps even certain ideal conditions like transfer only through an open cut or mucus membranes, etc., and some bodily fluids can even be ruled out such as slight perspiration or the tiny droplets invisible to the naked eye emitted when coughing or sneezing just because it isn't enough bodily fluid transfer that would cause infection just because these other diseases are so much weaker than Ebola.

Both airborne and aerosolized mean that a disease is transferred by breathing it in. Airborne viruses exist just in the air breathed while aerosolized means that the virus has to "ride" on minute droplets of moisture, but infection also occurs by breathing in the virus "riding" the minute moisture droplets which need not be droplets of body fluid moisture. Ebola is transmitted in neither of these ways but through direct contact with bodily fluids of an infected person with symptoms, so it's more like "skin to skin" contact since the transmission doesn't occur by breathing it in. The common cold is usually transmitted the same way which is why when around someone with a cold it's important not to handle anything the infected person did, and if you do not to touch your own mucus membranes without washing your hands.

and contained.

on the ground combatting this.

I hope you're right, but I fear you may not be. We'll all know soon enough.

Liberia.

We need to gird our loins and put away the duct tape and plastic sheeting. Stop crapping ourselves and figure out how to get money to Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross. Send messages of support to the Americans affected, and be prepared to help in the humanitarian crisis.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. A Democrat said that.

I feel terrible for the people of West Africa, but have read over and over again that it will stay contained to that area.

Gut feeling says it could get bad, but I always invest more in the experts than my gut feeling.

about the Reston outbreak when it was in full swing?

Nobody died and nobody ever showed symptoms of disease from that.

didn't know it wouldn't jump to humans until very late in the crisis.

For a very long time, they thought they were dealing with Ebola Zaire.

... you still have a few minutes to get to a fallout shelter of some kind, if you survive the blast, and that's what you should be trying to find instead of panicking.

No offense ms, just always was a phrase that irritated me. It's like someone really is going to say, "Okay, NOW, everybody panic!"

But I suspect you're right. Viruses evolve. Marburg (another filovirus) became aerosolized although it only infected monkeys.

It is, however, very contagious from bodily fluids.

Do you have a reliable source that this Ebola outbreak is airborne?

Otherwise, I must presume that you, and the OPer, are mistaken. Not sure why anybody would want this to be worse than it is, but somebody may be spreading misinformation here.

Ebola can be transmitted through droplets -- large particles that can be expelled from the body by coughing or sneezing. These particles travel short distances before settling onto surfaces. This is not the same as airborne transmission, which travels on small particles (like dust) that linger in the air for long periods of time.

count how many times in five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour--that you touch your face. Compare that to how often you washed your hands during the same time span. Did you wash your hands after touching the last object another person may have touched? Are you sure?

Door handle with sweat. Money that's been coughed, sneezed, or sweated upon. Sweaty bodies touching. Sweaty vinyl car seat. One sneeze or cough could infect an entire taxi full of people.

The virus doesn't *need* to be airborne in order to infect thousands of people in a very short time. Fortunately (if you could call it that), most victims sicken and die very quickly, so transmission is somewhat hindered.

The American citizen who traveled by plane.
The woman who is believed to have initiated the outbreak-she traveled by taxi.
So if experts claim people are too sick to travel, they are talking out of their ass.

Once hemorrhagic symptoms begin, the patient declines and dies astonishingly quickly without supportive treatment (and often with it, regardless).

If your liver is dissolving inside your body, you're probably too sick to travel. And, pro tip: healthy people should avoid all contact with people bleeding from their eyes or ears. Sorry for the facetious. Oh, and wash your hands. You can't guarantee that you won't fall ill, but people should be taking reasonable and common-sense precautions.

I'm not trying to minimize this crisis by any manner of means, but we don't need to make it worse than it actually is (which is admittedly pretty bad.)

One by plane, one by taxi. One traveling by taxi reportedly infected 5 other taxi passengers who died.
We don't yet know how many were infected by the one who traveled by plane.

That doesn't last too long. The virus is not transmissible during the incubation stage, IIRC. It IS transmissible during the "flu" stage, which is probably how the taxi passengers contracted it. The patient rapidly becomes too sick to do anything very soon after, however. That is a (relatively) good thing. It's one of the reasons that earlier outbreaks in rural areas (where travel options are limited) have burned themselves out without traveling too far afield. People are simply too sick to move about, and transmission was limited mainly to intimate family contacts.

Ebola loose in an urban setting is much more scary. Let us hope it doesn't come to that--that every single exposed person is located and isolated for the maximum possible incubation period. That's what I hope happens. This being the non-industrialized world, and rife with superstition and suspicion, I'm not confident.

As I said above, I'm not confident. I lived in Africa. This is an uphill slog all the way, no matter what. You're not just fighting a disease. You're fighting people's cultural practices and bred-in-the-bone suspicion of outsiders. And superstitions we westerners cannot begin to guess at without a degree in anthropology.

but it is readily transmitted through body fluids.

Once you start to shed virus and unfortunately body fluids as well it manages to move itself along pretty quickly.

An airborne version of Ebola which is incredibly pathogenic would infect thousands over a very short period of time.

That was a cross-country trip in a small vehicle.

It is common for people to share food and drinks on rides like that.

I hope that the reports that I have read are correct

This article cites unnamed experts. It references no sources. This story appeared out of no where a day ago.

Notice how the woman and here sister have no names? Who are these "Epidemiologists and virus experts believe the original case" The whole thing smells like fiction. I think REUTERs got duped. Where are the names, what is the origin of this story? I searched a while and found nothing.

Most important, why is B2G saying this is airborne. The referenced article doesn't say airborne anywhere.

Time to examine your lack of critical thinking here, and re examine the facts, the few that there are.

they depend on a singular lack of concrete information.

From what I've read you have to be in close contact with an Ebola victim to catch it and this woman certainly was.