A frightening possibility that the virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air is discussed by virologists. A tragic reality is the fact that almost half of the 301 health-care workers who have developed the disease have died. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control published an editorial in Eurosurveillance journal warning about the major implications of a such epidemic as a threat for the entire world. “Ebola cannot be ignored in the hope it will burn itself out,” said Peter Piot, one of the scientists who first identified the Ebola virus in 1976, working on this subject with his colleague Adam Kucharski, actual director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They concluded that “the current outbreak is unprecedented both in size and scale; it will require a response to match.”
