Ebola outbreak: What is risk of catching it on a flight?

The Ebola outbreak has caused anxiety among some airline travellers. One woman was photographed at Washington Dulles airport wearing a full hazardous materials suit.

On one level, it's easy to see why fears are so widespread. Aeroplanes are confined spaces. A traveller will touch surfaces like trays, armrests, pillows and television screens that have been handled by hundreds of others.

Passengers wielding wet wipes and face masks are a familiar sight.

Amber Vinson, the second person infected in the US, flew from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas, on Frontier Airlines flight 1143. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it wanted to interview the 132 other passengers.

It raises the question - how worried should they be about catching the deadly disease?

The answer, according to William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is not very much.

"I am sure they are concerned but the risk is essentially zero," he says.

Amber Vinson -undated photo
Likewise, the CDC says the risk to "any around that individual on the plane would have been extremely low".

This is because the virus is not airborne like flu. Anyone on the same flight as a patient would not be at risk from breathing in the same cabin air. And it's extremely unlikely that someone would catch Ebola from an armrest, a touch-screen television, or a tray, says Schaffner.

Instead, Ebola is spread by direct contact with contaminated body fluids such as blood, vomit, saliva and faeces. The virus can enter the body via infected droplets through broken skin or mucous membranes such as the eyes, the lining of the nose or the mouth.


The virus "is ferocious in the body but it is a wimp when it is on an inanimate surface", he adds. "As soon as it has arrived on the inanimate surface it has started to die off."

On inert surfaces, the virus does not last for long - "I would imagine no more than a few minutes", according to Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University. The exception would be "if you see visible blood or visible secretion".

CDC guidelines on tackling Ebola say that a carpet or seat cover that is dirty from blood or body fluids should be discarded in the same way as bio-hazardous material.

Source: BBC