Ebola Myths and Facts: Test Your Knowledge

The Ebola virus can only be passed through bodily fluids. It may be possible through tears, but the most infectious are blood, stool, and vomit. Bodily fluids also include breast milk, urine, semen, and saliva.

Not unless the person had symptoms and you had direct contact with their bodily fluids. You can’t get it just by breathing the same air. The virus doesn't spread through air or by water. You can also get it from contaminated needles, sheets, and other objects. To infect you, the virus has to go into your body, such as an infected person sneezing in your face.

People with Ebola can’t pass it along until they start to feel sick. It can take 2 to 21 days for symptoms to appear, but it usually happens in just over a week. The first signs -- fever, muscle ache, headache, and a sore throat -- can look like malaria, typhoid fever, and even the flu. Later symptoms can include vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding inside the body and from the eyes, ears, nose, or mouth.

Scientists think certain fruit bats, called Old World fruit bats or flying foxes, are natural hosts of the Ebola virus. Infected bats might have helped spread the disease in Africa to people and animals. The virus also has been found in antelopes and porcupines. People would have gotten it from infected animals' organs or bodily fluids, such as when handling raw meat from wildlife.

Most people who get better can’t spread the virus anymore, but Ebola can stay in semen for up to 3 months, although it's rare. Men who’ve had the disease should use condoms for 3 months or not have sex. Likewise, women should not breast-feed during that time, in case it's in their breast milk.

Not yet. Researchers are looking into two experimental vaccines, but those aren't ready for prime time. Scientists need to test them on healthy people to make sure they’re safe and that they work.

Four of the five strains can make people, monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees sick. The fifth virus causes disease in those animals but not in people. The strain in the current outbreak is the most lethal one.

One lab study found that Ebola could live for up to 6 days under ideal conditions. But it wouldn’t likely last that long in most places. Household bleach can kill it. U.S. hospitals are so good about cleaning and disinfecting that experts believe the virus could last about 24 hours, at most, in that setting.

There’s no approved medicine for Ebola. Remember the two American aid workers who caught Ebola in Liberia? Nancy Writebol and Kent Brantly, MD, got better after getting an experimental treatment called ZMapp. But it still needs to be tested in more people to know how well it works or how safe it is.

About half the people who get Ebola die. But experts think someone who recovers would probably be protected against that strain for at least 10 years. That’s because their bodies make substances called antibodies to fight off the disease. It’s possible they could be infected by a different Ebola strain, though.

Ebola first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo happened in a village near the Ebola River.

Yes, there are vaccines and medicines for the flu, and there aren't for Ebola. But Ebola is much rarer and harder to catch. Your chances of getting Ebola are almost zero unless you’ve traveled to a place where there’s an outbreak or you’ve been directly exposed to the bodily fluids of someone who has symptoms.