The good news in the fight against Ebola is that the number of new cases reported in the three worst-hit countries has fallen to its lowest level in the past seven months. The bad news is that the virus has reportedly mutated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were fewer than 100 new cases in a week in the countries that started it all – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- for the first time since June 2014. Many believe the drop could signal the start of a gradual decline in the epidemic. But at the same time, even if it's normal for a virus to change, if Ebola is changing it might be able to jump more easily from person to person and whether it has become more contagious or more lethal. A virus can change itself to less deadly but more contagious and that is a mater of concern. Another common concern is that while the virus has more time and more hosts to develop in, Ebola could mutate and eventually become airborne. There is no evidence to suggest that it is happening. The virus is still only passed through direct contact with infected people's body fluids. For the moment the way of transmission is still the same. You just have to avoid contact with a sick person. But scientists cannot predict that it won't change. Maybe it will. Much more research needs to be done to understand why some people survive Ebola and others don't. Science is still so stumped that its only answer to why Ebola kills some and not others is that survival can often depend more on the strength of the sufferer's immune system than anything medical science is currently able to do. Another big mystery is the increase in asymptomatic patients — people infected and contagious but who don't exhibit any of the known symptoms of the deadly virus. There are also the outbreaks that may wane and eventually disappear, but another infection breaks out at some point because the places where the virus hides in nature, for example in small animals, is still a threat for humans in the future. Although there is currently no approved treatment for the fatal virus a number of experimental drugs are being developed. First, results from a human trial of an Ebola vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline show it is safe and generates an immune response, but larger trials are needed to see if it protects and if a booster is needed. The advances made against Ebola have given the WHO enough confidence to move to the second phase, focussing the shift from slowing transmission to ending the epidemic. But despite the decrease in numbers and the vaccines, Ebola remains a fatal virus, so much so that it is classified as a Category A bioterrorism agent by the US federal government body Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — meaning it has the potential to be weaponized and used in biological warfare. Perhaps the biggest misconception is that because Ebola first broke out in Africa and has not done much damage outside the continent, then it is a solely African problem. But because just one case of Ebola can still cause an epidemic, it is a world problem and should be seen as such. More medical research is done and more money is spent on modern life's more pressing problems — baldness and liposuction. One cannot be mundane about more than 22,000 reported Ebola cases since the outbreak began — with 8,800 deaths — no matter how far away the battle may be.
