Is Ebola Coming to the New World?

Of all the deadly viruses in the world, Ebola is probably the most deadly. Oh, it doesn’t have a history of killing off millions of people, like the bubonic plague does. But that’s just because it hasn’t had a chance.

Up until now, Ebola has been confined to the back country in Africa, where it doesn’t have many victims to choose from. When an epidemic starts, it usually can’t get past the village it started in.

What makes Ebola so deadly is that it is one of the fastest killers out there, with one of the highest mortality rates. You can go from exposure to Ebola to death in ten days and it has a mortality rate of 90 percent. Yep, 9 out of 10 people who come into contact with Ebola end up dying from it.

The current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is really scary. This is the first time that Ebola has infected enough people, over a wide enough area, to be truly called a pandemic.

There are currently four countries in Africa where medical teams are treating Ebola victims. Over 700 people have died and there are another 500 or more that have the disease. According to statistics, at least 450 of them will die as well.

There is no cure for Ebola, nor is there an effective vaccination. Medical science has had very little luck in developing medicines that work against viruses. The vaccines we take are largely so that our bodies can develop the necessary antibodies to fight off these diseases, should we become infected. Since there is no vaccine for Ebola, our bodies are going to have to start from scratch if we become infected.

Ebola is a virus; something so small, that it can’t even live on its own. It can’t eat, doesn’t have a means of moving itself around and can only reproduce with the help of a host. In the process of reproducing, it kills the cell that it gets the genetic information from.

That’s all it does, reproduce. It moves from cell to cell, throughout the organism it has invaded, killing a cell at a time so that it can reproduce. Given time, it kills all the cells in that host, reproducing and taking over that victim’s life; killing them.

While the virus can kill within ten days, its incubation period can be as high as 21 days. That means that it will be anywhere from two days to 21 days between the time that the victim is infected by the virus and the first onset of symptoms. During that time, the person is a walking time-bomb, spreading Ebola to everyone they come into contact with.

This deadly disease has infect two Americans in this outbreak. Two American health workers that are helping care for the sick in Africa, one of them a doctor, have been infected by Ebola.

Video first seen on FOX 4 News – Dallas-Fort Worth.

They will soon be flown back to the United States on separate special medical evacuation flights, so that they can receive better care. While that probably won’t save their lives, the medical community feels they are owed the best possible chance, as they gave their lives to care for native Africans who have Ebola.

While I suppose it is possible that something will go wrong and the Ebola they are carrying will spread and infect others, I seriously doubt it will happen. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has a lot of experience in dealing with diseases of this type and will take every precaution to ensure that the disease stays contained.

The greater risk comes from travelers that might contract Ebola while in Africa and then return to the United States with it. There is no way of knowing how many Americans are in Africa right now.

It’s not just the countries that are part of the pandemic either; if someone from another part of Africa, or even from Europe gets infected, they could carry the virus back home with them. Should fate work out that an American traveler comes into contact with them, while overseas, they could become infected and bring the disease home with them without even knowing it.

Granted, chances of that happening are probably pretty low; but they still exist. The only way of catching it would be to test everyone who comes into the United States for Ebola. While a test does exist, it would have to be given three days in a row to be sure. How many people do you think would be willing to be quarantined for three days in order to enter the country?

On top of that risk, there’s the biological warfare risk that this current outbreak of Ebola provides. It would be fairly easy for any country or even a terrorist group to get their hands on an Ebola victim or their blood and start their own Ebola production.

With the current border crisis on the southern border, sneaking infected people or canisters containing the virus into the country would be child’s play.

Apparently concerned about this possibility, President Obama just signed an executive order allowing people who had signs of any sort of respiratory infection to be detained. While I am normally not in favor of Obama’s “phone and pen” policy, I would have to say that this time he might actually be justified. Unfortunately, the wording of the order leaves a lot of leeway for it to be abused by government workers at all levels.

About the only positive light I see in this situation is the American medical system. Fortunately, Obamacare hasn’t had enough time to destroy it altogether.

So there is still the possibility of our medical industry overcoming any such pandemic, before it can spread.The key will be rapid and decisive isolation and quarantine at the first sign of any outbreak. Obama’s executive order helps make the possible.

As preppers, we have another option. This is one of those situations where bugging out would be even better than bugging in. Once the first case is reported anywhere within a couple of hundred miles of where you live, you might want to put your bug-out plan into effect and get out of Dodge.

While you might be jumping the gun just a bit, at least you’ll be alive. You can’t catch the disease if you make yourself scarce, staying far away from where it is.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.