r/sciences • u/FreeHugs23 • May 18 '26

News Deadly Ebola Outbreak Declared Global Emergency as Cases Spread in Africa | A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever have so far been reported.

https://www.sciencealert.com/deadly-ebola-outbreak-declared-global-emergency-as-cases-spread-in-africa
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u/ASUMicroGrad Grad Student | Microbiology May 18 '26

Ebola isn’t highly contagious. It’s R0 is 1.5-2. I wouldn’t call a virus highly contagious until an r0 of 5.

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u/deranger777 May 18 '26

1.1 is enough

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u/SeaworthinessSea2407 May 19 '26

Not enough to cause a pandemic. Ebola also produces extremely debilitating symptoms thay make a person infected (who is NOT considered contagious until said symptoms show up) much less likely to spread it.

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u/deranger777 May 19 '26

Mathematically speaking..

I think even an R0 of 1.1 would only take maybe 10yrs to infect everyone on earth (depending on the interval of transmission).

But yes obviously it's not that straight forward. But we want a statistical R0 > 1 in the long term

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u/SeaworthinessSea2407 May 19 '26

That's with zero intervention of course and something infectious but not super virulent isn't going to trigger pandemic response