IF WHAT THIS HEALTH EXPERT JUST SAID ABOUT EBOLA IS TRUE, WE MAY BE VERGING ON CATASTROPHE

If What This Health Expert Just Said About Ebola Is True, We May Be Verging On Catastrophe

“It’s the single greatest concern I’ve ever had..."

James Beattie — September 12, 2014

Photo credit: shutterstock.com

A professor with more than 40 years of public health experience warns that the Ebola virus, currently only contractible through direct contact with bodily fluids, could soon be transmissible through the air.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN that, “It’s the single greatest concern I’ve ever had in my 40-year public health career.”


In an editorial for The New York Times, Osterholm warns that the Ebola virus could mutate and become an airborne disease.

   “Viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next.  The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1000 years.”

He continues, “If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola.  Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.”

The University of Minnesota professor tells CNN, “I can’t imagine anything in my career – and this includes HIV – that would be more devastating to the world than a respiratory transmissible Ebola virus.”

Osterholm also cautions people about the possibility of Ebola spreading from West Africa to other regions of the developing world.

   “This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years.  It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages… What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu – or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

Osterholm previously served for 24 years in several roles at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and was the Principal Investigator and Director of the NIH-supported Minnesota Center of Excellence and Research and Surveillance.

The Ebola virus is comprised of ribonucleic acid (RNA), which means it changes slightly every time it is transmitted.  According to the World Health Organization, there have been 4,784 documented cases of Ebola, with 2,400 deaths.

Not everyone is accepting of Osterholm’s assertions, however.  Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), former Deputy Commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Clinical Assistant Professor at New York University’s School of Medicine, is skeptical that Ebola could become airborne, as he writes in Forbes last week.

   “Ebola’s RNA genome would have to mutate to the point where the coating that surrounds the virus particles (the protein capsid) is no longer susceptible to harsh drying effects of being suspended in air.”

He continues his point:

   “To be spread through the air, it also generally helps if the virus is concentrated in the lungs of affected patients.  For humans, this is not the case.  Ebola generally isn’t an infection of the lungs.  The main organ that the virus targets is the liver.  That is why patients stricken with Ebola develop very high amounts of the virus in the blood and in the feces, and not in their respiratory secretions.”

Photo credit: shutterstock.com

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