A lot of this thread is speculation. Let me interject by actually citing some research which may answer some questions.
@kenjackson: "Is skin a barrier for Ebola?"
Yes. According to Bausch et al.
"Taken together, our results support the conventional assumptions and field observations that most EBOV transmission comes from direct contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected patient during the acute phase of illness. The risk of casual contacts with the skin, such as shaking hands, is likely to be low."
In the same paper, they note that:
"We found [Ebola] to be shed in a wide variety of bodily fluids during the acute phase of illness, including saliva, breast milk, stool, and tears. In most cases, the infected bodily fluid was not visibly contaminated by blood."
This lends credence to Kyro and JshWright's assertions that hospital and PPE protocol are hard to exactly follow, every time (I'm certainly guilty sometimes). Even if the equipment or chucks aren't stained with blood, there is a possibility that the patient's tears have leaked onto the material and remain unseen.
Would UV lights kill the virus, if, for example, it were to be sneezed out from a patient. Assuming the patient room was awash in UV light, would that kill the virus if it found airborne/aerosol method of transport from an infected patient?
According to several sources, it may take up to an hour for the virus to be invalidated by UV light. That makes it not really practical for the patient or the HCP involved.
Not only that, but I suspect at the energies required, the amount of UV radiation would be quite harmful to the patient as well.
"Inactivation of virus stocks.Virus stocks were inactivated by exposure to UV light for 1 h. Proper inactivation was controlled by the incubation of Vero E6 cells with the inactivated virus particles and subsequent screening for the presence of viral proteins (immunofluorescence) and viral RNA (reverse transcription [RT]-PCR targeting virus-specific transcripts). The UV-inactivated stocks were used at the same dilutions as the noninactivated stocks."
> We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.
> ...
> This reflects an incorrect and outmoded understanding of infectious aerosols, which has been institutionalized in policies, language, culture, and approaches to infection control. We will address this below. Briefly, however, the important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.
> ...
> Modern research, using more sensitive instruments and analytic methods, has shown that aerosols emitted from the respiratory tract contain a wide distribution of particle sizes—including many that are small enough to be inhaled. Thus, both small and large particles will be present near an infectious person.
> The current paradigm also assumes that only "small" particles (less than 5 micrometers [mcm]) can be inhaled and deposited in the respiratory tract. This is not true. Particles as large as 100 mcm (and perhaps even larger) can be inhaled into the mouth and nose. Larger particles are deposited in the nasal passages, pharynx, and upper regions of the lungs, while smaller particles are more likely to deposit in the lower, alveolar regions. And for many pathogens, infection is possible regardless of the particle size or deposition site.
> It's time to abandon the old paradigm of three mutually exclusive transmission routes for a new one that considers the full range of particle sizes both near and far from a source. In addition, we need to factor in other important features of infectivity, such as the ability of a pathogen to remain viable in air at room temperature and humidity and the likelihood that systemic disease can result from deposition of infectious particles in the respiratory system or their transfer to the gastrointestinal tract.
> We recommend using "aerosol transmissible" rather than the outmoded terms "droplet" or "airborne" to describe pathogens that can transmit disease via infectious particles suspended in air.
> Here, we provide data on the stability and viability of MARV and ZEBOV in both liquid media and on a range of solid substrates at various temperatures, over time. In addition, the stability and decay rate of MARV, ZEBOV and Reston ebolavirus (REBOV) within small-particle aerosols held within a modified version of the Goldberg drum system (Goldberg et al. 1958) was investigated.
Completely right! As was theorized since the first modern recorded index case was recorded in Africa (a Dutch coffee farm owner?), several healthcare providers were infected who had not even touched the patient or any of the patient's secretions.
However, note in the paper I cited:
"However, the isolation of EBOV from only 1 saliva specimen, in contrast to the 8 that were RT-PCR positive, could suggest that the virus is rapidly inactivated by salivary enzymes or other factors in the oral cavity that are unfavorable to virus persistence and replication."
That plus the fact that standard precaution PPE for diseases with high rates of transmission (at least in CA) calls for goggles and a mask makes this story all the more interesting.
@kenjackson: "Is skin a barrier for Ebola?"
Yes. According to Bausch et al.
"Taken together, our results support the conventional assumptions and field observations that most EBOV transmission comes from direct contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected patient during the acute phase of illness. The risk of casual contacts with the skin, such as shaking hands, is likely to be low."
In the same paper, they note that:
"We found [Ebola] to be shed in a wide variety of bodily fluids during the acute phase of illness, including saliva, breast milk, stool, and tears. In most cases, the infected bodily fluid was not visibly contaminated by blood."
This lends credence to Kyro and JshWright's assertions that hospital and PPE protocol are hard to exactly follow, every time (I'm certainly guilty sometimes). Even if the equipment or chucks aren't stained with blood, there is a possibility that the patient's tears have leaked onto the material and remain unseen.
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142....