“Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” is a philosophy that way too many people don’t seem to comprehend.

I remember roughly 35 years ago when I disease that the medical community called ‘Grid’ hit in the US. They had not idea what it was and how to fight it. Most thought that if you just stood a couple of feet from someone who contracted this horrible disease, they would get it. After a few years doctors started calling it by another name, A.I.D.S. (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). They also began to learn how it spread, by contact with bodily fluids from an infected party. And it didn’t matter if you were Gay or Straight, this disease didn’t discriminate.

Now we have Ebola. Once again the ignorant are in panic mode. I am seeing the same reactions now as happened then. All based on lack of information and understanding.  Instead of learning about the virus and finding out what it does, way too many let their imaginations run rampant.  Lies and propaganda reign supreme.

As published by the WHO’s website http://www.who.int/en/ , here are the facts:

Transmission

It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced.

Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person can also play a role in the transmission of Ebola.

People remain infectious as long as their blood and body fluids, including semen and breast milk, contain the virus. Men who have recovered from the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery from illness.

No where in what is stated does it say you can be in the same room and get sick. No where does it say that brushing up against someone’s jacket while in passing is going to put you in an isolation ward.   More people die from the flu on an annual basis, in the 10’s of thousands, than will die from this current outbreak.  Now with Election Day looming, politicians are in full swing creating panic among their constituents.  I find it appalling that the truth and facts don’t matter.  Only fear and panic seem to count.

This is AIDS 1985 all over again.