Some reassuring news on Ebola: 

US STATE DEPARTMENT EBOLA ALERT

In order to help our Embassy Community better understand some key points about Ebola virus we consulted with our medical specialists at the U S State Department & assembled this list below, worded in plain language for easy understanding. 

• The suspected reservoirs for Ebola are fruit bats. 

• Transmission to humans is thought to originate from infected bats or primates that have become infected by bats. Undercooked infected bat and primate (bush) meat transmits the virus to humans. 

• Human to human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from Ebola virus or their body fluids. • Transmission among humans is almost exclusively among caregiver family members or health care workers tending to the very ill. 

• The virus is easily killed by contact with soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. A washing machine will kill the virus in clothing saturated with infected body fluids. 

• A person can incubate the virus without symptoms for 2-21 days, the average being 5-8 days before becoming ill. THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS until they are acutely ill. 

• Only when ill does the viral load express itself first in the blood and other bodily fluids (e.g vomit, feaces, urine, breast milk, semen and sweat). 

• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others. • There are documented cases from Kikwit, DRC of an Ebola outbreak in a village that had the custom of children never touching an ill adult.Children living for days in one room huts with parents who died from Ebola did not become infected. 

• You cant contract Ebola by handling money or swimming in a pool. 

•There's no medical reason to stop flights, close borders, restrict travel or close embassies, businesses or schools. 

• Always practice good hand washing techniques, you will not contract Ebola if you do not touch a dying person.

US EMBASSY Pls share this information & try not to spread panic on social media.

Stay Safe