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Claire Skold
Communication 202: Writing for the Media
Research and Write a News Story
Victoria Hildebrandt
April 9, 2017

Ebola Today, Are we Still at Risk?

Walk into any local hospital and you will likely be asked if you have traveled outside of

the US. This precautionary question was brought on by the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western

Africa that entered the United States in September 2014.

Today most Americans are not thinking about Ebola, and according to a pole by Pew

Research Center, 58% of Americans express little or no concern about being exposed to Ebola.

This is likely because the last known case of Ebola in the US, was in October 23, 2014 at

Bellevue Hospital Center in New York (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC],

2014).

The Ebola virus took front and center news, when reports of an outbreak in Western

Africa was spreading like wildfire. In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have seen 11,310

confirmed deaths from the Ebola virus to date. Clusters of smaller outbreaks still pop up from

time to time (World Health Organization [WHO], 2016).

Dr. Adam MacNeil (2012), an epidemiologist at the CDC, suggests the reason behind this

is because Ebola is not found in human until there is an outbreak. It is a zoonotic virus, meaning
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it lives in native animals of Africa. However, Ebola is an exceptionally rare disease. He

stresses the importance in surveillance to identify and contain new outbreaks.

The problem today is that some of the survivors still harbor the virus. It is established that

transfer of the virus can occur from semen during sexual contact, resulting in new flare-ups. This

is likely to put the US at a risk again (WHO, 2016).

Though the new Ebola vaccine has seen a level of success in prevention of the disease.

WHO (2016), has only recently declared the end of the latest outbreak in Liberia on June 9th

2016. This is an indication that the threat is still real and the US need to continue to screen the

American public for possible exposure.

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References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014, December 16). Cases of Ebola Diagnosed in

the United States. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ bola/outbreaks/2014-

westafrica/united-states-imported-case.html

MacNeil, A. (2012, October 1). A Case of Ebola Virus. [Audio podcast]. Emerging Infectious

Diseases. Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website: https://

www2c.cdc.gov /podcasts/player.asp?f=8625560

Pew Research Center (2014, October 21). Ebola Worries Rise, But Most Are Fairly Confident

in Government, Hospitals to Deal with Disease. Retrieved

from http://www.people- press.org/2014/10/21/ebola-worries- rise-but-most-are-fairly-

confident-in-government- hospitals-to-deal-with-disease/

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Ebola Outbreak 2014-2015. Retrieved from http://www.

who.int/csr/disease/ebola/en/

World Health Organization. (2016, June). SITUATION REPORT, Ebola Virus Disease.

Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/208883/1/ebolasitrep_10Jun2016

eng.pdf?ua=1.