With cases of Ebola popping up in North America, some people are overreacting to the threat. North Korea has banned foreign tourists. A seven-year-old student was not allowed in school for a few days after she came back from Ebola-free Nigeria. An elementary school teacher was put on 21-day paid leave after attending a conference in Dallas, where an Ebola-affected nurse was. Parents pull their children from a Mississippi school after finding out that the principal had returned from Zambia, which is far away from the outbreak.
Ebola and the flu both have similar symptoms at the beginning of the illness, meaning the upcoming flu season is ripe for misunderstanding. However, Ebola and the flu have fundamental differences in three core areas: transmission, symptoms, and treatment.
Transmission
It’s a lot easier to get the flu rather than Ebola. The flu virus is transmitted through droplets from an infected person – this means sneezing, talking etc. A person can only get Ebola through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person, such as blood, saliva, and feces.
“The people who are at risk of Ebola are healthcare workers providing care and close family,” said Dr. Johnmark Opondo, deputy medical health officer for the Saskatoon health region.
So it’s okay to travel to the Dallas airport because you won’t be coming into contact with bodily fluids from nurse Amber Vinson, who was in the airport while she was infected with Ebola. Unless you have been in close contact with someone in the throes of Ebola (since it’s not contagious until symptoms appear), you will not be infected.
“Influenza is quite contagious,” Dr. Opondo said. “Ebola needs pretty close contact.”
Symptoms
“The thing that I think gets people most confused is, in the early stages of Ebola, it’s quite difficult to distinguish it from flu,” Opondo said.
Both illnesses start with fever and headaches. However, while flu symptoms remain respiratory (coughing, sore throat, runny nose) Ebola symptoms quickly take a turn for the worse with vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, fatigue, and unexplained bruising. In the early stages it takes a trained eye to tell the difference between Ebola and the flu, and often a history of who the patient has had contact with is needed to make a sure diagnosis.
Treatment
The flu has some antiviral treatments that work, but it has to be caught early. Most cases are treated with lots of fluids and rest. Ebola doesn’t have a specific antiviral treatment, so the symptoms need to be treated. With Ebola, vomiting and diarrhea can be so severe that the patient becomes dehydrated and they collapse. Treating symptoms includes making sure the patient has stable circulation and blood pressure.
So if there’s no treatment, why do some survive while others die? It depends on a variety of factors: how much virus is in the person, what kind of treatment they get, and how bad the symptoms are.
Canada hasn’t had an outbreak of Ebola, and Opondo said that he doesn’t think people in Saskatchewan should be worried about being infected. He thinks people should be concerned about how the outbreak is being handled and contained.
“If something serious like this is going on the world, we are connected to it somehow,” he said. “We haven’t seen cases but we need to be watching and making sure it’s being addressed properly … If it’s left to continue and explode and grow even bigger, then it becomes a bigger threat.”
So it’s okay to worry about the Ebola epidemic, but just be aware that it likely won’t show up in your own backyard.
“I want people to be aware, but I don’t want them to be paralyzed, like ‘I’ll get Ebola if I go outside’,” Dr. Opondo said.
