The CDC and Ebola: A status update [updated and bumped]

Article: Centers For Disease Control Releases Update On Current Ebola Outbreak Status, Ensuring Virus Is Unlikely To Leave West Africa

CDC update dated 7/28/14.

New update:  United States issues travel warning for 3 African countries hit by Ebola outbreak

Dealing with the outbreak is “more of a marathon than a sprint.”

In four months, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has broken records for being both the longest lasting outbreak and also for claiming more lives than ever before in history.

The CDC believes:

• "...The likeness of the outbreak spreading outside of West Africa is low.”
•  Ebola “is not that easily spread in a typical airline environment...”
• "Using past instances of Lassa fever as model, in case the virus were to enter U.S. soil, its chances of spreading with the same force as it has spread in West Africa is unlikely."
• "The CDC's... main objective was to raise the level of awareness of Ebola in all U.S. emergency rooms and front line places for primary care."

Update article: Ebola outbreak: Victim who sparked fears of global epidemic was on way home to US

 An Ebola victim who was allowed to board an international flight was an American citizen on his way home to the United States, it has emerged.

Patrick Sawyer worked for the Liberian government and was visiting his sister there when he developed symptoms while on a plane to Nigeria. He was quarantined on arrival in Lagos and died on Friday.