Researchers from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) have informed officials from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from the World Health Organization that they now have "scientific and epidemiologic evidence" that the Ebola virus has now potentially evolved to become an airborne virus that is transmissible through "infectious aerosol particles " in exhaled breath.
The CIDRAP scientists from the University of Minnesota are considered as one of the worldwide leaders in dealing with public safety and health concerns since 2001. At present, they have issued a warning to both the WHO and CDC, as well as to the general public, that the conventional type of face masks that are widely used for commercial or personal purposes are not nearly sufficient to prevent this mode of Ebola transmission. According to the report, health workers who are most likely to be in the frontlines and dealing with the virus must be provided with "full hooded protective gear and powered air purifying respirators."
Researchers say that global authorities should take immediate action and employ steps to reduce the risk of exposure. They say that waiting for a "scientific certainty" to develop is too much of a risk to take at this point. According to the report, the current working theory that is being circulated by the CDC is outdated. "Virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract."
CIDRAP also added that the possibility of this mode of transmission was previously undiscovered by aerobiologists because they were unable to measure the small particles that were released by the infectious patients. They just assumed that such particles existed at a distance from the source and that airborne transmission, therefore, will only happen a few feet from the patient.