Credit CDC PHIL
# 9840
One of the early `voices of reason’ on the threat posed by the Ebola Virus outside of Africa, was Dr. Ian Mackay on his VDU Blog.
While many in the news media, social media, and the tabloids went nuts last August over improbable `Ebola doomsday scenarios’ (see A Look Down The Ebola Rabbit Hole) – Ian produced a series of focused, and scientifically grounded looks at the `real risks’ from the virus, and debunked some of the rampant misinformation spreading on the net.
A few examples:
Fake/wrong Ebola virus disease images...
VDU Blog: Droplets vs Airborne - Demystifying Ebola Transmission
And a review by Ian and Dr. Katherine Arden in The Lancet, published last November:
Lancet: Mackay & Arden On Ebola In Semen Of Convalescent Men
Today Ian and Kat Arden are back with a look back at the messaging (good and bad) during the height of the Ebola outbreak last fall, and a reality check on the threat Ebola poses to a modern society with decent public health resources.
Follow the link to read:
Catching Ebola: mistakes, messages and madness
Written by Dr. Ian M. Mackay and Dr. Katherine E. Arden
Despite obvious community and media fear, speculation and exclamation that Ebola virus would enter and spread widely within countries outside of the hotzone, such an event did not come to pass in 2014. The early public health messaging on Ebola virus and disease were, for the most part, spot on.
In 2014 and 2015, thousands of cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) ravaged Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2014 (the "hotzone"). A smaller outbreak was defeated in Nigeria [8] and another distinct Ebola virus variant drove an outbreak of EVD in the Democratic Republic of the Congo[7] - they too controlled spread of the virus. Ebola virus traveled from the hotzone to other countries including Senegal, Nigeria, the United States of America (USA), Mali and most recently, the United Kingdom. It did this by hitching a ride in a usually unknowingly infected human host.
