On his VDU's blog, Dr. Ian Mackay has two important posts. Here's one: Ebola, pigs, primates and people. Follow the internal link for the other. Excerpt:
This is a companion piece to my collaborative article, Ebola virus may be spread by droplets, but not by an airborne route: what that means, posted a couple of days ago. I suggest you read the both together.
In this post, I'd like to make sure we all understand that an airborne route of Ebola virus infection has been used to deliberately infect non-human primates (NHPs). It is possible and it can be done. Okay? I'm not covering up any secret knowledge or trying to conceal facts that only we few evil-society-of-science types know. I don't secretly work for an agency aiming to delude you dear readers into feeling falsely safe about the risks associated with being near an Ebola virus infected person (which most reading this will likely never be). Frankly, I'm learning this as I go.
Don't expect perfection from risk mitigation advice.
Like all things that involve biology, there are hardly ever clear-cut lines and yes or no definitions and explanations. Sometimes that's because things vary...because biology! Sometimes that's because we haven't yet done enough science to know those answers. I'm not an expert on ebolaviruses nor on Ebola virus disease (EVD) - but in my time learning about the viruses and the disease, its clear that this is (yet another) area that is lacking in all sorts of information.
So risks are judged using what we do know and can support and verify, with softer language used when decision makers don't know for certain; less so when they think they do.
When that message of risk gets passed to the public, it is important to be accurate, clear, concise but not to over-simplify things because that may degrade trust in the body(s) sending the message if things change later. That's a very tough balance when dealing with biological risks.
