Ebola: What You Need to Know

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by Caroline Cravens, Assistant Editor

People are buying hand sanitizer  by the 40 oz bottles and pulling their kids out of school for a disease that can only be caught by coming into contact by bodily fluids. Ebola is not the black plague, it’s just a sometimes fatal disease. The only reason people are over-reacting is because Ebola can be fatal, and so far, there is no cure.

With Thomas Duncan (the first victim of the disease in the US) dead, and the few people he came into to contact with under close surveillance,  the possibility of Ebola spreading even further in the US is actually pretty slim.

There are far too many myths about this disease that make it scarier than it actually is.

Top 5 Ebola myths

  1. Ebola is airborne.                             Completely false. The only way to spread Ebola is through bodily fluids. The nurses that worked with Ducan that now have Ebola contracted it because of an incorrect procedure involving protective personal equipment. Keep in mind that only 2 out of the 70 healthcare workers that attended to Ducan have Ebola, so it isn’t easily contracted.
  2. Ebola is fatal.                                     Only 50-80% of Ebola patients die. As of right now there is no for sure cure, and that’s probably what started that rumor.
  3. There are children in Dallas ISD that have Ebola.                       No child in DISD has tested positive for Ebola, they did come into contact with Ducan. But, as stated earlier, Ebola isn’t airborne. Out of precaution, the schools with the affected students have been closed twice for thorough cleaning.
  4. Ebola zombies are real.                                 Big American News broke a fake story on September 30 about Ebola zombies rising from the dead. Notice how it is a fake story. The picture that went along with the story was a modified test shot from the movie World War Z. There would be some serious media coverage if legitimate zombies were alive, but there is no media coverage for these “zombies.”
  5. There is no way to help heal Ebola.          Nina Pham (one of the nurses with Ebola) is in reportedly good condition and she received a blood transfusion from Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly. The blood transfusion could be helpful to curing Ebola, but it hasn’t been proven.

Ebola is still a scary situation, but people are making it a larger deal than need be. With proper care, and the technology that the US has, Ebola is not going to be the next black plague.