Amid High-Profile Outbreaks, Benefit of Widespread Asymptomatic Screening Remains Low
Original article from Contagion Live by Jared Kaltwasser February 14, 2019
When a West African Ebola outbreak overtook international headlines in 2014, the constant media attention was about more than the symptoms and consequences of the deadly virus. It was also about fear that the virus would spread far and wide.
Eleven people were treated for Ebola in the United States,1 most of whom contracted the disease in West Africa, and all but 2 recovered. Although the outbreak’s impact on Americans was infinitesimal compared with its impact in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the US cases caused outsized panic due to 1 factor: Ebola’s famously long incubation period of up to 3 weeks. Americans knew the numbers were small, but what if those official numbers were hiding something much, much bigger?
CERTAINTY INSTEAD OF PANIC
On one hand, the 2014 Ebola episode is a cautionary tale about the dangers of public panics. On the other hand, it is an example of something epidemiologists cannot avoid: new emerging diseases are appearing—and evolving—in humans, and they are not all easy to detect or contain.
Recently, some researchers have begun asking the question of whether patients ought to be preemptively screened for diseases and other health problems after traveling overseas. John H. Connor, PhD, associate professor of microbiology at Boston University’s School of Medicine and its National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories (NEIDL), said there are important reasons to get to the bottom of potential Ebola infections as soon as possible, particularly in the cases of health care workers who have traveled to Ebola outbreak zones and the family members or others with whom they have come into contact upon return.