“The epidemic is spreading in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea at a rate which is each primary case of infection generates two secondary cases. That’s the average. In the United States, two secondary cases generated, admittedly by health care workers who were caring for the very ill patient.”
The chief of the American military, General Martin Dempsey, caused controversy this week when he suggested that the virus could mutate and become even more pernicious.
“This virus is a little bit different from the viruses that were causing sporadic epidemics way back in 2004 and the previous forty years,” Anderson said. “The number of changes in a code, which has nineteen thousand bits, is about three hundred. Relatively small.”
“So my first concern is not mutation; my first concern is getting this under control. And at the moment there is no evidence to say this is airborne droplet transmitted.”
“However, I stress that this is a very difficult infection to study, and there’s no evidence to say not. But my assumption, and the evidence at the moment, points to contact.”