No threat foreseen from public sniffles, coughs
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Oct. 23, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Riding a bus or an elevator full of sniffles, coughs and sneezes is one of the more unpleasant aspects of the flu season.
Those same coughs and sneezes can be downright terrifying these days, given that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has spread a tendril into the United States with the first diagnosed cases in Dallas.
But people face no threat from Ebola due to these public sniffles, according to a panel of Ebola experts gathered by the New England Journal of Medicine for an issue briefing Wednesday.
The evidence from this epidemic, and prior Ebola outbreaks, strongly suggests that the deadly virus cannot be transmitted through a cough or sneeze, said Dr. Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with the aid organization Doctors Without Borders.
"If there were significant airborne transmission, we would see spontaneously generated cases that were not linked to a known case. There would be cases of casual transmission," Sprecher said in response to questions from health professionals.
When experts investigate how people have contracted Ebola, "it inevitably tracks back to a significant exposure" involving direct contact with either a very sick person or a dead body teeming with the virus, Sprecher said.
That's why new guidelines for health care workers treating Ebola patients focus on full-body suits that leave no exposed skin, said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, associate director for healthcare-associated infection prevention programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The best evidence that we have suggests that the overwhelming route of transmission is through contact with contaminated fluids with broken skin or mucous membranes," Srinivasan said.
The fluids in question are primarily vomit and diarrhea, which develop as Ebola infection progresses. The experts said people become more infectious as they grow sicker with Ebola, as the amount of virus in their system escalates.
Within the first day of the disease, when you simply have a fever and no production of bodily fluids, you don't see disease transmission through casual contact, Srinivasan said. "So we assume that it is not easily transmissible during the incubation period or even into the first day or two of the disease," he said.
No one in the family of America's first diagnosed Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, became infected even though they were in the house with him when he became sick with vomiting and diarrhea, experts noted.
"I think that's a particularly important thing for us all to remember," Srinivasan said.
However, the experts admitted that these assertions are based on observations by epidemiologists, rather than by hard scientific evidence. Not enough research has been done to provide definitive answers because Ebola outbreaks have been so rare.
source : Airborne Transmission of Ebola Highly Unlikely, Experts Say
