Five Reasons Not to Panic over the Ebola Virus

With news of the Ebola virus infecting Americans it stands to reason that people are worried. Ebola is frightening as it typically kills 90 percent of the people who get it, and the most recent outbreak is the largest in history.The number of people who have died has risen to at least 932 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Although a handful of Americans are currently being treated for Ebola in the US the possibility of actually catching Ebola is incredibly remote. According to a CNN report here are five reasons not to panic.

1. Ebola is an incredibly fragile virus. It does not fly through the air with the greatest of ease. It cannot be transmitted through a cough or a sneeze and it doesn’t move easily from human to human like the common cold. While Ebola is aggressively infectious it is not highly contagious. “The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with blood, secretions or other body fluids of ill people and indirect contact – for example, with needles and other things that may be contaminated with these fluids,” said Stephen Monroe, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Emerging Zoonitic and Infectious Diseases.
2. We know how it works. Although there is no vaccine and no cure, the one real advantage we have with Ebola is that doctors know how to control it. Common-sense hygiene can stop its spread. “Ebola is a virus that can be stopped and not spread in hospitals. The stakes are higher, but it’s easily inactivated with typical hospital disinfectants,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden
3. We have the resources to contain it. Most ICUs have isolation rooms that are used for patients suspected to have tuberculosis, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome or another infectious disease. This would be the same for an Ebola patient, though more stringent precautions might be taken to ensure that healthcare workers are following all protocols.
4. The doctors treating the American Ebola patients are prepared. They know how to handle Ebola and use an abundance of precaution when working with an infected person. Medical workers across the country have also been told to watch out for Ebola symptoms and question patients who have recently traveled to West Africa. They are trained to recognize Ebola cases and can quarantine them early, keeping others from coming into contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids while the disease runs its course.
5. Airports are on alert. Passengers at African airports in the Ebola-affected region are being closely screened. Health experts are watching for people with high fevers and those who have a temperature are removed and monitored while doctors test their blood for Ebola. At US airports, trained federal agents also watch for sick passengers. If someone is sick, agents can remove them and keep them in special isolation units at many US airports until the CDC arrives to ask further questions.

Overall, health experts say, the threat to Americans remains relatively small.

Bullets

• Based on a comparison of CBO’s August 2010 and April 2014 baselines, Medicare spending this year will be about $1,000 lower per person than was expected in 2010, soon after passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which included reductions in Medicare payments to plans and providers and introduced delivery system reforms that aimed to improve efficiency and reduce costs.  By 2019, Medicare spending per person is projected to be nearly $2,400 lower per person than was expected following passage of the ACA. (kff.org)

• The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that over half the public has an unfavorable view of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in July, up eight percentage points since last month, while the share viewing the law favorably held steady at just under four in ten. A solid majority continues to prefer that Congress work to improve the law rather than repeal and replace it. (kff.org)

• Adult vestibular disorders are typically underdiagnosed and undertreated. An estimated 35.4 percent of US adults aged 40 years and older (109 million Americans) experience vestibular dysfunction at some point in their lives; a percentage of this group go on to develop a chronic vestibular disorder. (vestibular.org)

• The Journal of the American Medical Association indicated that the obesity rate among 2- to 5-year-old children has decreased 43 percent in the past decade (dropping from 13.9 percent to 8.4 percent). (jama.jamanetwork.com)

• The US government has made no secret that the long-term viability of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will depend upon getting Millennials to enroll and stay signed up. So far, these efforts have been modestly successful. Q2 2014 data from Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, collected after open enrollment ended, showed that the percentage of uninsured Millennials had dropped several percentage points since late 2013. Some 18.7 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds were uninsured (down from 23.5 percent in Q4 2013), as were 23.9 percent of 26- to 34-year-olds (down from 28.2 percent in Q4 2013). (healthways.com)