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"  Earlier this week, public health officials worried that a Canadian man who recently returned from West Africa had brought home a deadly infection. The man exhibited symptoms of Ebola\u2014a disease characterized by headache, fever, and hemorrhaging, which has reached epidemic proportions in some parts of Africa. Laboratory tests have since ruled out the possibility that the Canadian patient has Ebola, and they now suspect he may have a severe form of malaria. But what would happen if Ebola did make it to North America? The World Health Organization (WHO) has called Ebola &amp;quot;one of the most virulent viral diseases known to humankind.&amp;quot; The disease often starts with headache, fever, and diarrhea, and then progresses to bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and other places. The worst strains of Ebola kill up to 90 percent of people infected, and there is no cure or preventative vaccine. So far, the vast majority of outbreaks have occurred in Central Africa\u2014Zaire, Sudan, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now outbreaks are occurring for the first time in West Africa, the WHO confirmed this week, citing 86 suspected cases and 60 deaths in Guinea. The organization is also investigating suspected outbreaks in Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, despite its severity, Ebola is an unlikely candidate to cause widespread epidemics. Ebola outbreaks in humans begin with direct contact with an infected animal. In Africa, fruit bats are considered to be natural reservoirs for the disease, but chimps, gorillas, and antelopes are also known to carry the infection. Currently there are no natural reservoirs for Ebola outside of Africa, which means it&amp;#039;s a lot less likely that Ebola could establish itself anywhere else, says epidemiologist Stephen Morse, from Columbia University. After the initial transmission from animal to person, the disease spreads from person to person through direct contact with the blood, saliva, and other bodily fluids of infected people. Compared to airborne diseases, which have pandemic potential, the spread of Ebola is slow because it relies on direct contact. And because it kills its victims so quickly, there isn&amp;#039;t much time to spread the disease to others. In developed countries, the spread of Ebola can be thwarted by isolating infected patients and wearing protective clothing. &amp;quot;Standard hospital hygiene goes a long way,&amp;quot; says Matthias Borchert, an epidemiologist at Berlin&amp;#039;s Charit\u00E9 University of Medicine. In previous cases where Ebola infected people outside of Africa, potential outbreaks were swiftly curtailed. In England in 1976, a laboratory worker accidentally pricked himself with a contaminated needle, but thanks to safety precautions, he was the only person infected and nobody died. In 1994, a Swiss zoologist began feeling ill eight days after performing a necropsy on a dead chimpanzee in the Ivory Coast&amp;#039;s Ta\u221A\u00D8 National Park. When antimalarial drugs and antibiotics didn&amp;#039;t help, the patient was flown back to Switzerland. She recovered 15 days later, after which laboratory tests showed that she had been infected with Ebola. But because the patient was kept in isolation and healthcare workers were careful about wearing masks and gloves, none of the 74 people she came into contact with contracted the disease. &amp;quot;Given the standard hospital hygiene in place everywhere, and the availability of high-security isolation wards, it is highly unlikely that this event would trigger a large-scale outbreak,&amp;quot; Borchert says. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a10376/what-if-ebola-came-to-north-america-16634125/>