What is Ebola, and how does it spread?
Ebola is dreaded, yet it has never been shown to travel through the air: it needs direct contact with a sick person's body fluids.
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Ebola is a severe illness caused by a virus, and it spreads through direct contact with the of a sick person, not through the air. Most people spread the virus through blood, faeces and vomit, and it gets in through the nose, mouth, eyes or any cut or scrape in the skin. No case of one person catching it from another through the air has ever been documented.
After exposure, symptoms take between 2 and 21 days to appear, usually 4 to 10. The first signs are fever, sore throat, muscle pain and headaches, which look like many other illnesses, including malaria, cholera and typhoid fever. Vomiting, diarrhoea and a rash follow, and only then do some people begin to bleed, inside or outside the body. Despite the name "", heavy bleeding is uncommon.
It spreads by
- Blood, vomit and faeces of a sick person
- Contact through the nose, mouth, eyes or broken skin
- Recently contaminated items
- The body of someone who has died of it
It has not been documented to spread by
- Air between humans or other primates
- Mosquitoes or other insects
- Water or ordinary food
- A person with no symptoms yet
That timing shapes who is at risk. A person who has not yet developed symptoms is not believed to pass the virus on, but a very sick person can, and the people who treat them are the most exposed. Even after death the body remains infectious, which is why handling it at a traditional burial can put mourners at risk.
For health workers, the danger is practical. In 2014 the US Centers for Disease Control began recommending that medical staff train in putting on and taking off , with a trained colleague watching every step, so that each step is done correctly.
Outbreaks of the disease have had a mortality rate between 25 and 90 percent, averaging approximately 50 percent. Early , with fluids and treatment of symptoms, improves survival.
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Recap
Ebola passes through contact with body fluids from someone who is sick or has died, not through the air, and the incubation period runs from 2 to 21 days.
💡 A trick to remember it · Think of Ebola as a message that must be handed over by touch: it never flies, it only passes from hand to hand.
Surprising fact · Despite the name "haemorrhagic fever", heavy bleeding is uncommon, and no spread through the air between humans has been documented.
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (15 claims) cites at least one of these.