Transmission
How do you get Ebola? Transmission & spread
Ebola is contagious but hard to transmit. The virus only spreads through direct contact with body fluids of a sick or deceased person — not through air, not through water and not through insect bites. A person becomes contagious only when symptoms start.
Transmission routes
Body fluids
Blood, vomit, diarrhea, sweat, semen, breast milk and eye fluid of a sick person.
Direct contact
Touching the sick, deceased or contaminated surfaces without protective equipment.
Wild animals
Slaughtering or eating infected bats, monkeys or other bushmeat.
Funeral rites
Traditional washing and touching of the deceased — historically a major cause of outbreaks.
Health workers
Without PPE extremely high risk — explains the high mortality among health workers in West Africa 2014.
NOT airborne
Ebola is not a respiratory virus. Coughing and sneezing are not primary transmission routes.
Safe
- • Sitting next to someone without symptoms
- • Flying with other travelers
- • Drinking tap water
- • Properly cooked food
- • Mosquito bites (Ebola is not spread by insects)
High risk
- • Caring for the sick without protective equipment
- • Contact with corpses without protection
- • Reuse of needles
- • Sex with a survivor without a condom
- • Processing or eating bushmeat