What say ye? Pandemic or not?

What is to stop 20 or 30 infected people in western Africa from going into the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and starting the beginning of the end??? Walking breathing time bombs...


The former variable, known as virulence, is high for Ebola. In general, WHO says, Ebola can have a 90 percent case fatality rate. The strain currently spreading through West Africa carries a 55 percent mortality rate, making it, on average, more deadly than the Bubonic Plague, Yellow Fever, SARS, or MERS—Middle East Respiratory Syndrome—which, since 2012, has infected at least 834 people and killed 288.

According to RMS, Ebola’s high virulence is mitigated by its low transmissibility. (As the researchers point out, virulence and transmission generally have an inverse relationship, as pathogens that readily kill their hosts have less time to spread). Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids. As such, each person infected with Ebola transmits the disease to only about 1.5 people. By comparison, each smallpox case, which is often transmitted through airborne droplets of saliva, produces about five new infections. And each measles infection, which also spreads through airborne saliva, can produces more than 10 new cases.

The balance between Ebola’s virulence and transmissibility means that, according to RMS, under proper conditions, an outbreak is unlikely to become a global pandemic.


http://www.newsweek.com/study-sugges...andemic-266238