NC Renegades

Some of the nation’s top infectious disease experts worry that one of the deadliest viruses on the planet could mutate and be transmitted just by a mere cough or a sneeze. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy a the University of Minnesota, writing for the New York Times stated that “The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air“.

Yesterday, on September 12, 2012, Osterholm  also told CNN that “It’s the single greatest concern I’ve ever had in my 40-year public health career.” Echoing Osterholm, Dr. David Heymann, professor for the London School of Hygiene of Tropical Medicine, said “It is impossible to predict how any virus will mutate”.

Both Osterholm and Heymann note that virologists are extremely hesitant to discuss the possibility of discussing the possibility and potential for Ebola to become an airborne virus because they are scared to death of being professionally discredited and accused of whipping up hysteria with regard to the dangers posed by the present Ebola outbreak. However, in private, they both state, that anyone close to the virus are expressing grave fears about this possibility. In fact, Osterholm specifically stated in the New York Times article that … it’s something they are “definitely considering in private.”

Osterholm is not merely expressing the fear that Ebola will go airborne based upon a knee-jerk emotional response. Osterholm’s observations are based upon his knowledge of the fact thatthe replication of Ebola has been “notoriously sloppy in replicating”, which greatly increases the chances that  the present form of Ebola can morph into a new strain that is considerably more dangerous and very possibly would become airborne.

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The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.

There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums. What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

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h/t Matt Bracken