If Michael Crichton were still alive, he would have written a novel about this.
Maybe he did.
I sometimes wander into conspiracy theory.
Is it coincidental that two new TV shows are about pandemics?
Last Ship and The Strain
Does "The Andromeda Strain" count? It wasn't exactly the same thing because it was about a microbe brought back from a probe of space dust or something. Plus it was nearly 100% lethal within mere minutes of exposure which is a bit implausible...that would make it more like poisonous gas than a pathogen.
Anyway, this outbreak is getting interesting what with the potential spread to other countries beginning to look more and more like a reality. The news this evening was that some elderly female from Sierra Leone got off a plane in the UK and keeled over, was taken to the hospital where she died quickly. No confirmation that it was ebola but the evidence is quite damning that it is. They supposedly have the plane quarantined which I hope means that they aren't letting the passengers off or letting them otherwise come into contact with the native UK population. Again, not really very well reported so kind of hard to say.
The plane carrying the woman came from Freetown in Sierra Leone – a country with the highest number of victims from the disease.
It stopped at Banjul in The Gambia before landing in Gatwick at 8.15am on Saturday after a five-hour flight.
Public Health England tried to allay fears of an Ebola breakout in Britain.
It said the woman showed no symptoms during the flight.
When you are thinking about pandemics or epidemics you need to look at "vectors." That's the name they give to people who are infectious and come into contact with others who then become infected and spread the disease. Global air travel makes vector transmission of highly infectious diseases several orders of magnitude easier than it was during past pandemics like, say, the Spanish flu. So, how many people came into physical contact with this person during the five hour flight? And how many people came into contact with them during the five hour flight?
Sample scenario: Infected person is touched by flight attendant. Flight attendant then touches X number of other passengers?
Or this: Infected person goes to plane restroom and sweats all over everything. Or barfs. Or whatever. And then X number of passengers visit the same restroom.
Or this: Infected person visits a restroom in departure city's airport. The X number of persons visit the same restroom and then depart for places unknown on other flights.
How many people got off the plane in Gambia for other final destinations who might have contracted the disease?
I am also guessing that third world airlines (like these, for instance) are not particularly fastidious in just about any area you care to imagine including cleanliness and record keeping.
It is said that the disease has an incubation period (time of infection to sign of symptoms) of anywhere between 2 days and three weeks. It is also said that only a person who is showing signs of infection is capable of infecting others. They also claim that this is not (yet) and airborne infections, that it may only be spread by contact with bodily fluids. I suspect though, that it would spread like crazy through a population of intravenous drug users and/or the sexually promiscuous even without symptoms showing. And my guess is as good as anyone's at this point because this is a relatively little understood disease.
One more thing: It is also said that a person will die within about five days (tops) of showing signs of infection. Anyone really believe that the elderly Sierra Leone woman didn't show signs of infection during that five hour flight? Can you even imagine having to sit next to her for five hours and then learning that she dropped dead from ebola within minutes of walking off the plane?
But an airliner cabin seems to be an especially convenient place for such a disease to spread. I suppose we will know soon enough.