Ebola is highly contagious

Ebola is highly contagious and deadly but spread only through contact with bodily fluids. Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson spent most of his day trying to calm the fears of North Texans. “It is easier to get the flu than it is to get the Ebola virus,” Thompson told KTVT-TV. "You have to get it through secretion, blood, that type of transmission. So this is not a situation where you go to the grocery store and you get infected with the virus.” Ebola symptoms include sudden fever, fatigue and headache. Officials said symptoms may appear anywhere from two days to three weeks after exposure. Four American aid workers have contracted Ebola in West Africa and been evacuated to the U.S. for treatment since late July. Three of them were released after making full recoveries. A fourth patient arrived in Atlanta on Sept. 9, but spokespersons at Emory University Hospital have said privacy laws prevent the release of an updated condition. On Sunday, a U.S. doctor who had been volunteering in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone was brought to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, as a safety precaution after he was exposed to the disease. In past years, Ebola has killed up to 90 percent of those it has infected, but officials say the death rate in the current outbreak is closer to 60 percent due to early treatment.

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