Quote:
Originally Posted by WebSlave
Hmm, so if a disease organism is transmitted through bodily fluids, and a mosquito bites someone with ebola, what is in that mosquito? If it bites something else, why couldn't a virus be passed onto the second host? if a needle stuck into a person suffering from ebola can pass the virus onto someone else that needle is later applied to, why would this mechanism fail in the case of the "needle" of a mosquito?
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Only specifically adapted things (such as the Malaria parasite or the Dengue fever virus) can live in mosquitoes (and then only specific species of mosquito) - so far there does not seem to be any evidence that Ebola is one of them, so it might get into the mosquito but should not live long enough (or cannot be replicated successfully by the mosquito's cells) to be transmitted.
As far as I can see transmission is by bodily fluids (including sweat) into open wounds (including scratches), so it is more infectious than HIV, but less so than Measles or 'Flu.
Normal handwashing and not shaking hands will go a long way to reducing transmission. Doctors working in the villages are maintaining a 2 m (6 foot) personal space between themselves and potentially infected individuals.
I also saw an interesting interview today that says while the infectious stage is 21 days, people at the start of the disease, with few symptoms, are much less infectious than those at the end with severe symptoms, or even dead bodies, so the most highly infectious victims should be either very obviously sick (or dead) and thereby fairly simply to identify and avoid in a Westernised nation.