What Congressmen Are Told About Ebola - Why is the US not closing all flights from the affected areas, & why is it still issuing travel visas to citizens from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea?

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh / Canada Free Press

The Congressional Research Service has been driving the legislative debate since 1914, giving our Congressmen information on various topics. The latest report on October 3, 2014, entitled, “Ebola: Basics about the Disease,” by Sarah Lister, Specialist in Public Health and Epidemiology, provides the following information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

1. Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in Guinea and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone by March 2014.
2. Ebola virus is a filo-virus named after the Ebola River in Zaire, with five different strains; the Zaire strain is causing the current outbreak.
3. Fruit bats are considered the most likely “reservoir” of the virus which is spread to humans through contact with infected animals.
4. Human to human transmission occurs through “direct contact with body fluids or contaminated objects such as medical equipment.
5. “It cannot be spread through the air” like common cold viruses or influenza.
6. Healthcare workers and family members that care for EVD patients “have a high risk of infection.”
7. Incubation period in humans, from exposure to onset of symptoms, “varies from 2 to 21 days, with an average of 8 to 10 days.”
8. Survivors still have Ebola virus and “remain contagious for several months after infection even though symptoms are no longer present.”
9. Symptoms include “high fever (greater than 101.5 degrees F), severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal (stomach) pain, and unexplained hemorrhage (bleeding or bruising).”
10. Lab tests are available to detect the disease but they often show false negative in the incipient infection.
11. Patients can be isolated in a medical setting (to separate ill people from healthy people) or quarantined at home (to restrict movement of people who are well but may have been exposed).

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http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/66897