Nobel Laureates and Ebola virus quarantine

After the governors of New York and New Jersey decided that health workers who have returned from the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa should be subject to a 21-day quarantine, two Nobel laureates entered the fray. Bruce Beutler feels that the quarantine is the right thing to do, while Peter Doherty says it’s wrong. Which laureate is right? The key issue in this debate is the assumption that someone who has been infected with Ebola virus, and does not display symptoms, is not contagious. Beutler doesn’t believe that there is enough evidence for this assumption: “People may have said that without symptoms you can’t transmit Ebola. I’m not sure about that being 100 percent true. There’s a lot of variation with viruses.” (source: NJ.com). On the other hand, Doherty says “the evidence-based consensus among the professionals seems to be that this is not necessary” (source: NJ.com). As I’ve written before, our knowledge of the non-contagious nature of Ebola virus infected patients is based on experience with previous outbreaks.  To make sure I wasn’t missing anything that Beutler had noted, I examined the published summaries of the previous outbreaks of Ebolaviruses. There have been 24 outbreaks caused by these viruses, summarized in a table by CDC.  In poring over the outbreak data, I looked for information on how the virus is transmitted. These data are typically obtained by interviewing Ebola virus patients or their families, and construct...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Information Bruce Beutler contagious ebola virus ebolavirus health care worker incubation period Nobel laureate Peter Doherty quarantine viral Source Type: blogs