• Question: Do you think that Ebola will be contained or will it become a pandemic?

    Asked by 477anta47 to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by chantelle, Caitlin n Eva, maddie, Red Lightning Will Drink Your Blood!!! (The Pizza Eater, Milk Chugger and Exploding Maniac).
    • Photo: Sally Cutler

      Sally Cutler answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Hi, I don’t think it will become pandemic as the infection can be controlled with correct precautions. The trouble is that it is in a poorly resourced area when facilities are not really ready to cope with such a disease. In some African hospitals they fit five children to a bed by putting them widthways rather than the normal way, so you can imagine this will be a good way to transmit if you are infected. Education also will help as funeral rituals have been implicated in further spreading of infection. It will take time, but I am hopeful this will be contained.

    • Photo: Robert Hampson

      Robert Hampson answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      I think it will be contained. Ebola kills its host too quickly and seriously to be very good at infecting more people.

      There is a large risk if it reaches the slums of a megacity as it would then find it much easier to infect new victims. I doubt it will spread easily to the West as our health services, public health programmes, and general education of our populations are much better prepared to deal with it.

    • Photo: Ceri Dare

      Ceri Dare answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      There have been many Ebola outbreaks in the past which have been contained, but this is this biggest one ever. I don’t think Ebola will be a big problem in the UK, as the hospital department where I work are doing a lot to prepare, so if an Ebola patient arrived they could not pass the disease on. But if Ebola spreads out of Sierra Leone and surrounding countries, and got into the big slums in poor countries, this would be very bad and many people could die.

      I hope that we can stop transmission, by looking after people with Ebola in good hospitals, and by immunisation. I know some doctors, nurses and lab workers who are in Africa volunteering to help people with Ebola, and I think they are HEROES!

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