Even if the present Ebola outbreak is confined to a few cases in Texas, the US is still in danger of a large scale epidemic down the road. Two prominent former health care officials have penned an op ed in the Wall Street Journal warning that the virus could break out of West Africa and cause a pandemic all over the world. The chances then of a trickle of cases in the US turning into a wave go up exponentially. Public-health workers will contain the Ebola case—and any secondary spread—diagnosed in Dallas. But the decisive risk to the U.S. will emerge in a few months. If the virus continues to spread in West Africa at its current pace, much larger global outbreaks will become likely. Should these outbreaks coincide with the cold-weather peak of the flu season—when symptoms of influenza can be confused for the early signs of Ebola—the health-care system’s ability to quarantine all the people with suspected Ebola infections, and test them in the...(Read Full Post)