Have you heard of Ebola? It’s this disease from West Africa that only kills people there, right? Unfortunately, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, or the Ebola virus disease (EVD), has been on the planet for decades and might be coming soon to a country near you (if it hasn’t been there already). Ebola is known as a hemorrhagic fever, which plainly means that it can affect major organs, damage blood vessels, and cause severe illness in humans. The deadly hemorrhaging virus has been responsible for over 11,000 deaths reported between 1976 and 2016.^[1]

Recurrent in West Africa and with cases spread all over the world, it seems like EVD is not leaving us anytime soon. Most reported cases of EVD outside of West Africa have been from health workers who have worked in or been based in West Africa. These infections are a result of exposure to the disease from outside their home countries. As a result, the following ten places have had suspected or confirmed EVD cases over the past five years.

10 Lagos, Nigeria

In the summer of 2014, a Liberian-American man flew from Liberia to the city of Lagos in Nigeria. On arrival at the airport, he became violently ill and unfortunately died five days later. Two leading infectious disease doctors who treated him at the hospital also died. This initial EVD case infected a total of 19 people, with seven of them consequently dying.^[2]

The virus was eventually declared contained in October 2014 after 42 days with no new cases. In early 2018, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority urged Nigerian airports to be vigilant in detecting the virus and began thoroughly screening both passengers and crew arrivals from EVD-affected countries.

9 Gulu, Uganda

EVD cases were first reported in Uganda in 2000 and subsequently in 2012, 2014, and 2018. Due to their proximity, it is thought that the cases are linked to the EVD outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan. Statistics show that there have been a total of 425 reported cases of EVD in Gulu, Northern Uganda, resulting in 224 deaths.^[3]

Since early 2018, there has been an increase in suspected EVD cases in Uganda around the northern and eastern regions. These reports are increasing due to the return of EVD in the DRC and Sudan and a rise in refugees fleeing violence. Many cases have been identified as Marburg disease, a “sister” viral hemorrhagic disease of EVD which presents similar patient symptoms, including internal bleeding and vomiting.

8 Mali

In 2014, an EVD-infected man from Guinea traveled to Mali and subsequently died. The infection spread to a further seven people, resulting in a total of six deaths.^[4]

All the same, the response of the health care agencies and Malian government has been championed. There is no need to worry about being infected, as in 2019, Mali has been classified by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a no-go area for citizens from other countries. Only essential travel is advised in most of the country.

7 Glasgow, Scotland

While working in Sierra Leone in 2014, a health worker became infected with Ebola.^[5] She has been noted as one of the most controversial EVD patients, as she was undetected on arrival at Heathrow Airport in London. The attending doctor checked her temperature and noted that it was normal. (It was actually high.) However, the patient soon deteriorated and became ill with the virus after arriving home in Glasgow, causing a nationwide panic. The attending doctor has since been suspended due to faking the details of the patient’s examination.

Since this period, after months of isolation, the patient has recovered from the virus. She has, however, returned to the hospital for rechecks, as the Ebola virus has returned in different parts of her body. Twice more, she was close to death but fully recovered. This case has been noted down in history as one of the worst Ebola cases in the West.

6 Dallas, Texas, US

In 2014, a Liberian who had been visiting family in Dallas, Texas, became unwell with the Ebola virus and soon died in a hospital. It emerged that on arriving from Liberia, he had lied on his airport admission documents about the fact that he had been in close contact with EVD-infected people in West Africa. Subsequently, two nurses who attended to him also contracted Ebola. Fortunately, both the nurses survived.

One of the nurses went on to sue the parent company of the hospital for a lack of personal protective equipment and health and safety measures. This subsequently resulted in a settlement.^[6] It is unknown if she is still working as a nurse.

5 New York, New York, US

An emergency doctor who returned from volunteering with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Guinea in October 2014 became ill just days after getting back to New York. He first went to meet friends and went bowling in the city before locking himself in his flat when he became suspicious of his high temperature. He was then transferred to Bellevue Hospital in New York and put into isolation. Three people who were in close contact with him were also put into isolation for security measures. He eventually recovered after weeks in the hospital.^[7]

4 Sardinia

In 2015, a nurse returned to Sardinia after performing three months’ worth of humanitarian aid work in Sierra Leone with the charity organization Emergency. When he began to notice Ebola symptoms, he put himself into isolation and ultimately ended up under quarantine in a specialist hospital in Rome, Italy. The nurse was placed under the care of a doctor who had successful experience treating patients with Ebola and was eventually cured.^[8]

3 Madrid, Spain

A Spanish nurse was infected with EVD while treating an infected patient who had been flown into Spain from West Africa. The EVD patient was a Spanish priest who had been working in Sierra Leone.^[9]

The nurse survived. However, unfortunately, the priest later died. He was the second Spanish priest to die from EVD. The first had been working as a health worker in Liberia.

2 Cornwall, England

In 2014, A Nigerian security guard was tested for Ebola after visiting his family in Nigeria. He was placed in quarantine for three weeks, a fact which made headlines. The man said he felt victimized by the quarantine. Nigeria was declared Ebola-free only two days after his return.^[10]

A Nigerian citizen staying at a Cornish navy base in Cornwall was also quarantined after becoming ill. However, test results identified a rare form of the monkeypox virus, and he was transferred to London for treatment.

1 Saudi Arabia

In 2014, a 40-year-old man returned to Saudi Arabia from a business trip to Sierra Leone. He soon became ill with the Ebola virus and was placed in isolation. He had returned to the country to make a pilgrimage to Jeddah and was stopped so that the disease could not be spread to hundreds of other pilgrims.^[11] He is the only known Ebola victim to have traveled to Saudi Arabia.

World Health Organization experts state that Ebola can be passed through close and direct contact with infected people and through handling infected persons’ body fluids, such as blood and saliva. Health care staff are advised to follow strict precautions to reduce the risk of human-to-human transmission by following outbreak protocols. This includes using personal protective equipment when handling suspected or Ebola-positive patients and moving and disposing of the bodies of Ebola patients safely. Ebola is a deadly virus that can recur in different parts of the body months and years after initial infection and treatment.

So remember to wash your hands and watch out for any cuts if you’re traveling or working in any affected regions in Africa. Be sure to take precautions in countries such as Guinea, Sierra Leone, Libera, Nigeria, Sudan, the DRC, and Uganda during your travels.

Caroline Alice is a freelance writer and English language teacher with an interest in health and infectious diseases. Twitter @carolinealiceb

Since it was first discovered in 1976, strains of the Ebola virus have wreaked havoc throughout central Africa, particularly in the Congo area. But previous incidents have only affected a fraction of the people struck down by the outbreak of 2014, which has infected over 1,700 people and killed more than 900. Perhaps the most frightening thing about Ebola, other than its staggering mortality rate, is how very little we know about it.

102014 Outbreak

As of August 6, 2014, the World Health Organization claimed that 932 people had died of Ebola so far in the summer of 2014. In a world of billions, this number may seem statistically insignificant, but it is important to realize that tiny rural communities have been hit especially hard.

On August 5, a nurse in Lagos was the first Nigerian to die of the virus. This is particularly horrifying, as Lagos is the most populous city in Africa, densely packed with an estimated 21 million citizens. Nigeria is scrambling to contain the plague as new cases pop up left and right, but how successful they will be and how many will die remains unknown.

The 2014 outbreak seems to have spread to Guinea, with dozens of cases reported by the Ministry of Health by March 24, 2014. Within a span of months, it managed to cross borders, taking hold in the neighboring nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, leading the American CDC to issue a travel advisory against visiting afflicted countries.

9Arrival In America

When news of the 2014 Ebola outbreak first broke, those in the West listened warily but without great concern. After all, Ebola had sprung up intermittently for over 30 years without causing significant damage. But when it was announced that an infected American, Dr. Kent Brantly, would be transported back to the United States, panic ensued. Recognizing a juicy story, the media only made matters worse.

The 33-year-old doctor was transported from Liberia via air ambulance, arriving in the US on August 2, 2014. He was brought to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, which is outfitted with a sophisticated biocontainment patient care unit replete with ultraviolet lights and air filtration systems.

If this does not assuage your fears, experts claim that even if Ebola somehow did make its way out of the hospital and take root in the general population, its impact would be quite minimal. According to epidemiologist Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, “Sustained outbreaks would not occur in the US because cultural factors in the developing world that spread Ebola—such as intimate contact while family and friends are caring for the sick and during the preparation of bodies for burial—aren’t common in the developed world. Health authorities would also rapidly identify and isolate infected individuals.”

8Discovery

The first recorded outbreaks of Ebola occurred around the same time in 1976 in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan. When people began dying of a mystery ailment, William Close, the personal physician of Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko, sent for a team of experts from Belgium’s Institute of Tropical Medicine. Their research focused on the village of Yambuku, where the first known case infected Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of the village school, and quickly spread to other people in the village. The Belgian team decided to call the virus “Ebola” after the nearby Ebola River rather than stigmatize Yambuku.

Of course, it is likely that Ebola has infected people much further in the past. Some historians claim that Ebola was responsible for the Plague of Athens, which struck the Mediterranean during the Peloponnesian War in 430 B.C. According to the historian Thucydides, who himself contracted the disease but survived, the plague came to the sea-faring Athenian people from Africa. Evidence is circumstantial, but descriptions of the disease—including its prevalence among caregivers and symptoms like bleeding—do indicate that Ebola may have been the culprit.

7Porton Down Lab Accident

Conspiracy theorists love to spin tall tales of secret government research laboratories where deadly biological agents are cultivated and monsters are bred, but unlike many crackpot theories, this one contains a grain of truth. One such facility is the Centre for Applied Microbiology Research at Porton Down in England, where Ebola research is carried out. The level-four safety category laboratory is outfitted with a shower system to sterilize researchers before they exit and bulletproof glass to ensure the virus is kept securely under wraps. Should an accident happen, such as a tear in a suit or glove, an alarm will sound.

These protocols have been in place for decades, but when Ebola was first making the rounds in 1976, no one was sure exactly what dangers the virus posed. One researcher was accidentally infected at Porton Down on November 5, 1976 when he accidentally pricked his thumb with a syringe while working with laboratory animals. He became ill days later, providing the scientific world with his bodily fluids and much of their initial data about the virus. Luckily, the man survived.

6Sexual Transmission

The first 7–10 days after they begin showing symptoms is critical to the survival of Ebola patients. This is when most Ebola victims die, but if the body manufactures enough antibodies to fight off the virus, recovery is possible. Even after a clean blood test, though, Ebola can linger in strange ways, such as in the breast milk of lactating women. It also stays in semen for up to three months, as blood-borne antibodies don’t reach the testicles, so men who recover from Ebola are told to practice safe sex with condoms. Seminal fluid taken from the researcher from Porton Down contained the virus 61 days after his recovery.

Experts state that likelihood of Ebola spreading through sexual contact is minimal, particularly because those with high viral loads are in no condition to be amorous. A more likely, if infinitely more morbid, route of transmission is the African custom of washing corpses before burial. While Ebola thrives in living bodies, the virus has been found in the carcasses of apes that have been dead for several days.

5Effect On Wildlife

Viruses that quickly kill their victims naturally fill us with terror, but these are hardly the most insidious. Death within a manner of days is scary, but it is a terribly ineffective way to spread a disease. Fast-acting viruses like Ebola have historically burned themselves out quickly and close to their original source, whereas viruses that manifest slowly, such as HIV/AIDS, have spread across the globe.

Scientists believe that the reason Ebola keeps managing to pop up is that the virus has found a reservoir in the bat population of central and western Africa, in the same way that bats have become the vector for rabies in other parts of the world. The fruit bats, which are asymptomatic, transmit the disease to animals like the duiker (a small antelope) and primates like chimpanzees and gorillas.

In more economically advantaged parts of the world, these creatures would quickly perish, and the story would be over. However, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, there is brisk trade in “bush meat,” wild animals that are hunted and sold when less palatable options are unavailable. Bush meat can be nearly any species, including bats, monkeys, and rats. While this sounds revolting to many of us, it is a far superior option to starving to death. It would have only taken a single infected animal being eaten to start the entire 2014 contagion.

4How Ebola Kills

Although the plague thus far appears localized, hospitals the world over are on high alert for the symptoms of Ebola. Unfortunately, symptoms of the early stages of the virus are so common that they are frequently ignored or misdiagnosed. The initial symptoms are quite like a cold or flu: headache, exhaustion, body aches, fever, sore throat, etc. Usually, these kinds of things might portend an ugly few days but are unlikely to send anyone scrambling for the nearest emergency room.

Unfortunately, things get far worse from there. The stomach soon revolts with vomiting, diarrhea, and wracking gastrointestinal pain, leaving the patient weakened for the next stage, in which the virus attacks all the systemic functions in the body. This is the most gory part, when the “hemorrhagic” element of the fever becomes apparent. Internal bleeding is common, the skin breaks out in blisters, and blood pours from the ears and eyes.

Death itself comes from various complications, including seizures, organ failure, and low blood pressure. There are several factors involved in determining the mortality rate, including the specific strain of the virus. The death rate of the 2014 outbreak hovered just above 60 percent as of August.

3Vaccine

In the past, Ebola spread from its animal hosts, typically infecting a handful of people in rural areas before fizzling out. While frightening and great fodder for thrillers like 1995’s Outbreak, whose plot revolves around a fictional form of the disease, it didn’t arouse a great deal of concern in the West. Developing a cure or vaccine has not historically been a financially viable option for pharmaceutical companies, since there would be no profit in it.

Despite the lack of commercialization potential, the world’s governments have been taking the disease seriously for years, sinking millions of dollars into research on how to stop Ebola if it were to be used as a biological weapon. Some experimental vaccines have shown great promise, including one that completely prevented rhesus monkeys from becoming infected with the Zaire strain, the one responsible for the 2014 outbreak. This vaccine is so effective that it even cured four monkeys that had already been infected. However, interesting private industry in making this a reality for the masses is an altogether different hurdle.

2Transmission

The precise mechanisms of the transmission of Ebola are unknown. Most experts agree that it can only be passed among humans through the exchange of bodily fluids, though there is some discussion that it may be spread aerobically from pigs to other species. At first glance, it seems easy to insulate oneself from such a virus, even for primary caregivers, by limiting the transfer of fluids.

Unfortunately, those who haven’t witnessed the ravages of Ebola firsthand are all too quick to underestimate exactly how much fluid leaks from the body of an Ebola patient, particularly in the latter stages, when blood can leak from every orifice. Combined with the fact that a single nurse or doctor is often charged with attending to dozens of patients at a time and the generally poor medical infrastructure of central and western Africa, it is no surprise that clinicians often find themselves sick.

1Treatment

In the past, treatment of the Ebola virus was practically nonexistent. Sufferers were only given palliative care, including liquids and electrolytes to keep them hydrated, painkillers like ibuprofen to bring down fevers, and antibiotics to temper any other complications and keep the immune system strong enough to focus on fighting the virus. The rest was largely up to the individual’s own constitution and which strain had sickened them.

However, the American victims, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, have received some experimental medicine. Brantly was treated early on with a blood transfusion from a 14-year-old boy he had treated who had recovered from the virus. They were also administered a serum pioneered by San Diego’s Mapp Biopharmaceutical derived from the antibodies of animals exposed to Ebola. The serum is supposed to spike the immune system and has reportedly proven effective in improving Brantly and Writebol’s condition. Other companies, such as Vancouver-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals and Fujifilm’s US partner MediVector, have also been fast-tracked to develop Ebola treatments before it is too late.

Mike Devlin is an aspiring novelist.

Panic over Ebola has reached absurd heights, with people paying far more attention to worst-case scenarios than to likely outcomes. However, mainstream media alarmism looks almost reasonable next to some of the more absurd conspiracy theories currently circulating about the disease.

10America Manufactured Ebola

Delaware State University professor Cyril Broderick published a letter in Liberia’s Daily Observer in September accusing the US government of manufacturing the Ebola virus. Broderick alleges that Ebola is a genetically modified organism that America weaponized and tested in Africa under the guise of distributing vaccines. He further names Canada, the UK, and France as being in cahoots with America, with the WHO and the UN somehow involved as well.

For sources, Broderick primarily quotes Leonard Horowitz, an opponent of vaccination who thinks American scientists also invented AIDS. Broderick further quotes some speculative conspiracy theorist article and the book The Hot Zone—a legitimate work of nonfiction that does not actually support his claims.

Delaware State did not fire or discipline Broderick for his wild, reckless claims. The University instead said that the professor has the right to say whatever he wants in his free time. But they made sure to clarify that they do not endorse his letter, and he has no expertise in the subject.

9The Ebola Virus Doesn’t Exist

A former nurse caused a violent uprising at a Sierra Leone hospital when a crowd heard her say that the Ebola virus doesn’t exist at all. The outbreak, she claimed, is really just an excuse for doctors to perform cannibalistic rituals at the hospital.

It didn’t take much to convince the crowd. Many in Sierra Leone and surrounding countries naturally distrust hospitals. Most patients and their families choose traditional healers over foreign doctors and nurses. One woman infected with Ebola was removed from a treatment center by her family and taken to a traditional healer. A search for the woman paid off, but on her way to the nearest hospital, she died in the ambulance.

Toward the end of July, the violence escalated as more people started believing the conspiracy. People threated to burn down clinics and treatment centers and remove the Ebola patients by force. At that point, Sierra Leone had the highest number of Ebola patients, and police officers had to stand guard at the main hospital in Kenema. They hurled tear gas into the crowd and accidentally shot a nine-year-old boy.

This incident also led health organization Samaritan’s Purse to stop their outreach to patients in the area. Their health workers had been attacked by community members after they tried to collect a patient.

8Saltwater Cures Ebola

False claims of cures have been making the rounds in parts of Nigeria. One of these cures is drinking saltwater—which, far from curing any disease, can dehydrate drinkers to the point of death. At least four people died of drinking saltwater in an attempt to protect themselves from Ebola. These people had been healthy and lived hundreds of miles from the nearest outbreak.

The World Health Organization issued a statement to warn people against treatments not given by doctors or nurses. They especially warn against believing anything about remedies that are posted on social media platforms. Patients should instead turn to health centers and doctors.

However, again, many in the affected region heartily distrust doctors and dismiss anything they say as lies. One man even told the Wall Street Journal that since he had never seen anyone die before his eyes of the disease, it must be only a rumor.

7God’s Wrath

In July, more than 100 Christian leaders met in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia to discuss how to respond to the Ebola threat. After a day’s discussion, the group unanimously declared that God was angry with Liberia and had sent Ebola as a plague to punish its people.

He was punishing them for corruption—for homosexuality, among other things. And the absolute best way for the country to respond would be three days of fasting and prayer. The government should join in the observation, said the group, shutting down for the period.

A Liberian Muslim cleric, Salafia Mosque chief imam Sheikh Salah Sheriff, echoed the sentiments. He blamed the outbreak on such sins as homosexuality, fornication, adultery, armed robbery, general wickedness, and disrespect of the authorities—all grave affronts to Allah. Asked, he conceded that followers should follow medical advice to avoid exposure, but to really defeat Ebola, Liberians had to “begin to fear God rather than the virus.”

6Witchcraft

One other rumor infecting parts of West Africa is that Ebola comes from witchcraft. The consequence of this is that people consider Ebola as a total and supernatural death sentence—even though treatment can help stop the spread and sometimes even save sufferers.

For example, when Doctors Without Borders took two sick sisters to an eastern Guinea hospital in July, both totally lost hope. Neither tried to fight the disease. They just lay still and waited for death. But Rose, the 12-year-old daughter of one of the sisters, apparently did not believe in witchcraft. She assured her mother and aunt that all three of them could survive, staying cheerful and ensuring that they all followed the doctors’ instructions. They all did recover, which makes them more fortunate than most.

The other consequence of irrational fear of Ebola is that sufferers become needlessly ostracized. Patients at the hospital, especially children, should ideally receive regular visits from their family. But family members are so scared of the disease that they often refuse to come in, despite doctors’ requests.

At the same time, the persistent belief in witchcraft is putting a serious dent in efforts to stop Ebola in its tracks. Some refuse to get medical help because they believe witches and sorcerers are cursing people and causing them to die. They simply refuse to believe that a virus is to blame for the deaths of patients.

5Doctors Are Purposely Infecting People With Ebola

In some villages, people don’t just think that doctors are useless in fighting the disease. They think that the doctors are actively spreading it, so they avoid or even fight doctors who try to help. This irrational fear may stem from incidents where patients went to the hospital for separate medical issues only to be infected by deadly diseases while there.

In extreme cases, villagers have threatened to kill any medical doctor or assistant who comes to treat patients. In the village of Kolo Bengou, Guinea, townsfolk blocked roads with logs to prevent Doctors Without Borders from entering. As a result, the disease spread further.

The persistent rumors that witch doctors can cure the sick also contributes to a lack of faith in real doctors, hampering effective treatment.

4It Started With An Evil Snake

One story tells of a woman with a bag at the border of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Someone opened the bag and saw a snake inside it, and as soon as they looked at it, the woman died. The person who’d opened the bag died next, and the snake slithered off in the nearest bush. And that was how Ebola entered Sierra Leone.

This odd tale is actually consistent with one part of the true story of Ebola. This outbreak is theorized to have started in Guinea before coming to Sierra Leone.

Those who believe in the Ebola snake say that those who show symptoms don’t have a disease at all. They’ve been cursed.

3Ebola Is Spread By White Demon Worshipers

The above image appeared on a Nigerian website in September. Along with it came a story that seems to combine the worst aspects of several dangerous Ebola rumors.

That anime-style nurse holding the skull is named “Ebola-Chan,” said the site. Cults in Europe and America worship her as a goddess. They perform blood sacrifices at altars to Ebola-Chan and eat the hearts of victims, and in return for their patronage, the goddess spreads Ebola throughout Africa. In league with the cult are doctors who manually infect victims with Ebola while pretending to treat it.

The posting did not come from a concerned Nigerian, despite what it claimed. It was from a user of the image board 4Chan, where Ebola-Chan is a meme. When a 4Chan user sees Ebola-Chan, they’re supposed to say “thank you, Ebola-Chan” and joke about the extermination of all Africans.

It’s uncertain if anyone in Nigeria was taken in by the website, but nearly all Internet hoaxes manage to fool someone.

2An Ebola Bomb

Dr. Peter Walsh, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, claims that terrorists could build bombs containing a powdered form of the Ebola virus. Such a bomb could kill huge numbers of people in a major British city, Walsh told a UK tabloid. This threat may seem particularly serious in the UK because there is otherwise little reason to expect that the disease will enter the country.

In reality, while bioterrorism is always a possibility, it’s unclear why any terrorist would choose to weaponize Ebola of all diseases. Unlike many diseases, Ebola is neither airborne nor waterborne. It is far less contagious than most other viruses.

1The Ebola Crisis Will Launch The New World Order

Perhaps the strangest conspiracy theory of them all claims that the New World Order elite created the Ebola virus as a means of depopulating the Earth. The number of people who must die to reach a “manageable population” is a staggering five billion.

According to this insane conspiracy, the New World Order elite have three primary ways of ensuring depopulation. These include famine from unsustainable development, war from artificial conflict, and manufactured diseases. The cure for the diseases will only be held by the elite.

The elite created the Ebola epidemic to depopulate Africa, with the rest of the world their next target. The news that Ebola has reached the US and killed a patient in Dallas only fueled the fire around this theory.

Estelle lives in Gauteng, South Africa. She usually loves conspiracies, but these ones are far too crazy.

Have you heard? The apocalypse is here. Across the US, Europe, and the UK, stories are emerging about a virus that’s the older, meaner brother of the Black Death and the Spanish flu. Ebola will kill you in the most horrific way imaginable and it’s about to go supernova on humanity.

Or is it? Turns out the Ebola threat to the West has been overstated to a ridiculous degree. It has been dangerous and destructive on the African continent, but it isn’t the worldwide Armageddon the media is making it sound like.

10It’s Almost Impossible To Catch

When Spanish flu hit in 1918, it infected over one-third of the world’s population. Thanks to a scarily efficient transmission rate, the virus swept through the human race like the infection in a zombie movie. Right now, the question on everyone’s lips is: Could Ebola do the same?

The answer: No. Not a chance.

Unlike Spanish flu, Ebola is very hard to catch. To contract the virus, fluids from an infected patient have to enter your body via a cut or one of your orifices. If you wanted to, you could literally douse your hands in infected blood and—provided you didn’t have a cut and you washed properly afterward—still not get Ebola.

But what about the common fluids, the sort we share on a daily basis like saliva and sweat? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the live virus has never been isolated from sweat. As for saliva, it only becomes contaminated in the most severe stages of the disease, meaning you’d have to be French-kissing a terminally ill patient to stand a chance of catching it from saliva. Nor can bloodsucking insects like mosquitoes carry the virus from one human to another.

In fact, Ebola is so hard to catch that you could sit on a plane next to an infected person for an entire flight and still not contract the virus. When an infected man projectile-vomited in an airliner full of passengers in July, not a single other person became sick.

9The Transmission Rate Is Laughably Low

When studying an infectious disease, doctors consider a factor called the basic reproductive number (“R₀“). In its simplest terms, R₀ tells us how many other people an infected person will spread the virus to. HIV has a value of 4, which means that one HIV-positive person could be expected to infect four other people in a totally susceptible population. A super-virus like measles has a value of 18, making it stunningly contagious. Ebola on the other hand has a maximum value of 1.5 or 2. That means that even if we take no precautions at all to isolate or treat an infected person, that person shouldn’t infect more than two people.

Now, mathematically, even such a comparatively low rate can lead to widespread infection if left unchecked. But in the Western world, Ebola’s actual R₀ is less than its maximum one. Since the virus spreads via fluids, it does best in cultures with poor medical care and where burial rituals involve coming into very close contact with the body. In countries with decent medical infrastructure, it finds its work cut out for it. The only prerequisite to stopping its spread is isolation; you could stop Ebola entirely with nothing more hi-tech than a door.

By doing nothing more than following procedures that have been standard for decades for dealing with infectious illnesses, the US is all but guaranteed to beat Ebola.

8It Won’t Become Airborne

Of all fears surrounding Ebola, the most terrifying is that it might become airborne. Scientists may assure us that it won’t happen, but we know that viruses mutate. Surely, an airborne Ebola is at least a possibility, right?

Well, yes, in the same way that it’s technically possible for Carrot Top to become the 45th president. While Ebola theoretically could evolve to take to the air, it would have to go against everything we know about virus transmission to do so. According to the WHO, there is literally no evidence that in any way documents airborne Ebola (not even the 1989 Ebola mutation discovered in Reston, Virginia). No virus in history has changed its method of transmission so drastically. Even super-fast mutating viruses like HIV and flu have never switched delivery method, and Ebola is like a sleeping sloth compared to those two.

And what about the possibility of Ebola being spread by coughs and sneezes, flu-style? Again, it’s extremely unlikely. As Scientific American pointed out, Ebola doesn’t replicate in sufficiently large quantities in the lungs and throat to make infection via sneeze a possibility. The virus also doesn’t give its victims cold-like symptoms. Finally, respiratory pathogens spread across the entire world in weeks or even days. If Ebola had made the jump to respiratory pathogen by now, we’d already know.

7If It Does Mutate, It’ll Probably Become Milder

Although it seems counterintuitive, most viruses actually want you alive. The world’s most successful viruses aren’t those that kill you stone dead in 12 hours, but those like HSV-1. HSV-1 lingers dormant in your system, allowing it to infect up to 90 percent of the American over-60 population.

Compared to a Darwinian superbug like that, Ebola is laughably pathetic. It kills its hosts so fast that it barely has time to spread itself. The idea of it becoming more dangerous as time moves on flies in the face of everything we know about natural selection.

A far more likely outcome in the event of a successful mutation is the virus becoming milder. For Ebola, this would be an evolutionary win as it could then spread to more people. For us, it would mean the virus becoming significantly less deadly to encourage this spreading. Rather than being a harbinger of airborne destruction, an Ebola mutation would likely save lives.

6There’s No Infectious Incubation Period

One of the scariest things about viruses is their incubation period—the time between when you contract the bug and when symptoms appear. During this time, illnesses like the flu can still be infectious, so you can spread the virus without even knowing you have it. Luckily, this isn’t the case with Ebola.

According to the WHO, Ebola patients can’t spread the disease until they start showing symptoms. Even if you shared a needle and a cup of vomit with your best friend the day before they came down with Ebola, you still won’t get infected. This is incredibly useful in combatting the disease. Since most people tend to notice when a friend is suffering Ebola, we can usually trace all the movements of an infectious subject and quarantine everyone with whom they came into contact.

As an additional bonus, the virus also stops being infectious the moment symptoms clear up, so the chances of catching it from a survivor are effectively zero.

5The Number Of Cases So Far Is Tiny

Remember swine flu? In 2009, we were convinced that a flu outbreak was going to annihilate all life on Earth. We barely noticed as it first spread across the globe, yet the virus still managed to infect over 60 million people in the US alone. If the States could shrug off nearly one-fifth of its population coming down with the last media panic, how many people must Ebola have already infected to cause such a storm this time?

Try around 8,000 worldwide. While that’s clearly 8,000 too many and horrible for all concerned, it does show how phenomenally slow and limited Ebola’s spread is. Only a single infection has been reported in each of Spain and Senegal, with no deaths. Even in the States, where Ebola has already claimed a life, the total number of infected people (at time of writing) stands at three.

For comparison, on average, the bubonic plague infects seven Americans annually. Yet, as of 2014, we’re still to experience a repeat of the Black Death pandemic that devastated Europe.

4We’ve Survived It Before

In 2008, Michelle Barnes stepped off a plane from Uganda, unaware that she had a passenger with her. Hiding in her body was the deadly Marburg virus, a close cousin of Ebola with a near-identical mortality rate and symptoms. Over the next few days, the symptoms began to emerge, during which time Barnes came into contact with around 260 people in her Colorado town. Of all those exposed to a symptomatic Barnes, care to guess how many came down with Marburg?

None. Barnes survived and did not infect a single other person. In fact, she wasn’t even aware that she had the virus until several months after her ordeal.

In the Netherlands, another woman who had been to the same part of Uganda as Barnes also came down with Marburg. Once again, no one else became infected, despite authorities identifying 64 people thought to be at high risk.

These weren’t just flukes. In literally every single case of Marburg reported in the West, the death and infection toll has been tiny. During the 1975 Johannesburg outbreak, only three people were infected, with one death. Even the infamous 1967 Frankfurt and Belgrade scares saw a mere 31 people infected and seven killed. This happened at a time when our knowledge of the virus was almost non-existent and medical procedures less stringent, and it still killed fewer people than asthma typically kills in a single day.

3Our Infrastructure Is Excellent

Aside from being at the center of an Ebola outbreak, what do Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia have in common? Answer: Their medical infrastructure is shamefully bad. Across all three countries, healthcare is little more than a particularly grim joke. Patients are often placed two or three to a bed. Water and electricity can be scarce. Health precautions are not observed, and patients are left untreated if they can’t afford the necessary drugs. In Liberia, many hospitals are effectively devoid of protective equipment and staff. In such conditions, it’s no wonder that Ebola spreads.

Contrast this with healthcare in the West, and things couldn’t be more different. Germany, for example, has seven entire hospitals specifically equipped for fighting Ebola. The UK’s healthcare system is so good that the government thinks the total number of cases could never reach double digits. In the US, the CDC has many measures in place to stop Ebola spreading. Combine this with well-funded, high-quality hospitals across the board, and the idea of Ebola devastating our cities begins to seem no more than a fantasy.

2We May Already Have A Vaccine

In 2005, virologist Heinz Feldmann created a vaccine that stops the spread of Ebola in macaques before or even after infection. Since no one at the time was interested in funding an Ebola vaccine, the work didn’t progress to human trials. However, in 2009, it was used on a German worker who accidentally pricked herself with an Ebola-infected needle. While it’s not clear that she’d ever contracted the disease at all, the vaccine certainly didn’t do any harm and possibly saved her life.

This isn’t the only Ebola treatment held up at trial stage. According to professor of tropical medicine Jeremy Farrar, there are several potential candidates in the works, all of which could provide some level of protection against the virus. By normal standards, they’re still far from being ready for consumers. But if the choice ever lies between taking this medicine and a strong likelihood of death—as it does for Ebola sufferers currently in West Africa—many say that these experimental treatments are promising enough to open them to the public.

1The Threat Is Just Media Panic

By now, you’re probably wondering why we’re hearing so much about a virus that will almost certainly burn itself out with only limited fatalities. Why are newspapers publishing stories that suggest all health and medical professionals are intentionally lying to us and the world as we know it is about to end? There are a few reasons, and one is very simple: Audiences eat it up.

Look back at almost any pandemic story of the last decade, and it’s pretty clear that the media focuses almost exclusively on the negatives. During the SARS epidemic, the Daily Mail ran the headline “SARS more serious than AIDS,” predicting over a billion cases. There hasn’t been a single case reported globally since 2004. When swine flu blew up, multiple papers claimed that it could kill 120 million people. In the UK, the effect of the panic was worse than the flu itself. By summer 2009, only 30 people had died, but the media-induced panic had nearly crashed the nation’s health services.

People simply don’t want to be reassured. If we’d called this article “10 Reasons Ebola Will Destroy America (And It’s All Obama’s Fault),” we’d be pulling in enough traffic right now to pay off all our mortgages. Same deal with news sites: They can’t let the other guy get all the Ebola clicks, so they churn out bigger, louder, and scarier articles to pull everyone in.

After all, if they keep on scaremongering, they may be right sometime. A disease may devastate the whole Earth at some point in the future. But this Ebola epidemic won’t. And the sooner the world’s editors and reporters realize that and just settle down, the better.

The recent outbreak of Ebola started in Guinea during December 2013 and has spread to six countries, including the United States. Its arrival in America has made a number of Americans nervous, with one in five people worried they could catch it.

Having a fear of the disease itself is legitimate. It’s a horrible virus that causes cells to explode and then infect other cells, eventually taking over the immune system and attacking every organ. Ebola leads to clotting and bleeding, which causes the body to develop sores and rashes. Victims can also bleed from the ears, eyes and nose before killing them with a combination of failing organs and blood loss after a day or two.

While it’s a terrifying thought to contract such a horrible disease, should you really be worried about it? If you take a closer look at some of the facts and figures surrounding the spread of the Ebola virus, you’ll find that the answer is a resounding no.

10. It’s Easy to Track

One of Ebola’s greatest weaknesses is that in order to spread globally it would have to be done via human-to-human contact. As a result, it’s a fairly easy disease to track, even on a global scale. For example, there’s a website called HealthMap that’s been tracking the spread of the disease since the outbreak.

Also, most people who have contracted the disease live in West Africa or were visiting for work. Others had direct contact with someone who caught the virus while in the area. All the current Ebola cases can be traced back to the West African outbreak. Since the disease follows a logical path and doesn’t appear out of nowhere, it makes it an incredibly easy disease to monitor.

9. Hyper Awareness

There’s no denying that the symptoms of Ebola are terrifying. However, in the grand scheme of things Ebola’s body count isn’t very high, with only 6,000 people dying from it since it emerged in 1976. That’s roughly the same number of people who die every day from respiratory infections.

One of the reasons the disease is common knowledge is the fact that it could infect anyone of any age or gender. However, that’s also one of its greatest weaknesses. When it comes to infectious disease, awareness is a large part of the battle.

According to journalist Randy Shilts, lack of awareness was one of the major reasons HIV spread during the 1980s. In his 1987 book, And the Band Played On, he points out that HIV spread in part because of a lack of government support and media attention, because the victims were often gay men or drug addicts. However, with Ebola making headlines almost everyday since the outbreak, it’s at the height of its awareness.

8. Airports are on High Alert

One of the biggest concerns about Ebola is the spread of the disease on a global level. After all, modern air travel makes it much easier for contagious diseases to spread beyond the local level.

However, there’s a good chance that won’t happen because United States officials have said there are going to be new screening measures that will check passengers’ temperatures and then hold them for questioning if officials are suspicious. Airports in Africa are also screening passengers flying out of the continent.

One worry is that someone who is not yet showing symptoms will board the plane and infect others. However, people only become infectious after displaying symptoms. If someone should break out in symptoms while on the flight, the Center for Disease Control has measures in place to ensure that the virus doesn’t escape into the general public.

7. Experts are Knowledgeable

If you take a look at other major outbreaks and plagues in history, one of the biggest problems was that people didn’t know how the diseases spread. But the World Health Organization is incredibly knowledgeable about Ebola.

While they’re not entirely confident about the exact origin of the disease, they’re pretty sure that it came from fruit bats. What they do know is that the first reported case of death from Ebola was in 1976 in Zaire, which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then scientists have been studying the virus, and they understand how the disease works and what steps are needed to limit the spread.

And since they know how it works, they’re able to administer treatments that seem to be working. Simply treating the symptoms has aided in survival rates. Unfortunately, despite knowing a lot about the disease there’s still no cure. However, an experimental drug called brincidofovir has been approved by the FDA to be used in emergency cases.

6. It’s Not Always Fatal

One of the more frightening aspects of the disease is that, according to the media, it has a death rate of 90%. That number was calculated by dividing the number of known infections by the amount of people who died from it. However, the 90% figure was taken from an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2002 to 2003, which was the deadliest outbreak ever.

The actual rate between 1976 and now is 60% to 65%. And for this outbreak, the number is closer to 54%. The 90% number was influenced by many factors that made treatment difficult, including poor access to medical care and the fact that a civil war was on-going.

5. Most Food Won’t Be Infected

Human aren’t the only ones affected by Ebola. Primates and other mammals can get the disease, most notably the fruit bat, which is a West African delicacy.

Scientists believe that fruit bats are “natural hosts” for the Ebola virus. Residents of West Africa will eat infected fruit bats or other animals, get sick and spread the virus to those around them. So the obvious question is whether or not that could happen elsewhere. The short answer is no, not likely. African bush meat generally isn’t consumed outside of Africa.

The only way food outside of Africa could become infected is if an infected person comes into contact with food or an animal meant for consumption and their blood, feces or urine gets on the food or in the animal. Both scenarios seem unlikely, and there are safeguards at many different levels to ensure that food isn’t messed with.

4. Ebola Can Be Fought

Do you know what the best resistance against Ebola is? Let’s say you touch someone or something owned by someone who has Ebola. Do you have to go into quarantine and hope for the best? Nope — all you have to do is wash your hands with soap or anti-bacterial hand gel.

Areas where outbreaks occur generally lack basic necessities like clean water and soap. So as long as you keep washing your hands, as you should anyway to avoid other illnesses, you shouldn’t have a problem.

3. Spread and Mortality Rates Vary on Location

An inevitable question is “If Ebola really isn’t a problem, then why is there an outbreak in the first place?”

Well, the answer is simple — it’s based on location. One of the main reasons there’s an Ebola outbreak in Africa and there won’t be in places like America is that Americans have easier access to soap and antibacterial gel. If you compare the mortality rate of Ebola in countries with known infections they change based on preparedness, as well as availability and quality of health care. For example, in Guinea the mortality rate is 73%, but in Sierra Leone it’s only 41%. If the disease were to appear in America, chances are it wouldn’t spread as the victims would be quickly quarantined and treated.

2. It Won’t Go Airborne

One of the biggest fears about Ebola is that it will go airborne, or will be transmitted through something like mosquito bites. However, Dr. Peter Piot, who was a co-discover of Ebola and is now the director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, says that it’s irresponsible for news organizations to even suggest that the Ebola virus could go airborne. No virus similar to Ebola has mutated so drastically, so quickly, ever. Piot, along with other experts, says that Ebola is not airborne, nor will it be in the future.

1. Almost No Chance of Catching It

There are only a few different ways you can catch Ebola, and the main one is exchanging bodily fluids. It’s mostly passed through blood, feces and vomit, although it has been detected in semen, breast milk and urine. In order to get the disease you have to come into close contact with an infected person and their fluids. The odds are that a massive majority of people outside of the outbreak won’t come into contact with an infected person. In fact, outside of Africa only 14 cases of Ebola are being treated as of September 2014.

The chance of you catching it is rare. One researcher says that the chances of someone outside the outbreak catching it are so incredibly small that the odds are almost non-existent. So relax, and get back to worrying about what foods are giving you cancer.