August 20, 2014 – Ebola

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Anchor lead:  The US public really doesn’t have to worry much about Ebola, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Death from Ebola virus infection is horrific, and images from Africa have fueled public hysteria about the risks of contracting the infection.  Gabor Kelen, director of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins, says at least in the US, the risk to the general public is extremely small.

Kelen: You’ve got to remember that at this point we’ve been through preparing all the way for smallpox as a possible terrorist weapon to SARS to H1N1 to avian flu to most recently MERS co-virus so the idea of emergent infections and how to protect the public, our patients and healthcare workers is not particularly new.  So as deadly as this virus is, it doesn’t actually present any kind of a new twist in how we should approach patients.   :31

Kelen is hopeful that worldwide efforts currently underway will contain the infection until an effective vaccine is developed.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.