How the nurse in Texas acquired Ebola remains publicly unknown at this point in time. CDC Atlanta has ascribed it to “protocol breaches“, and CDC officials are currently deciding whether additional safety measures are required to prevent further transmission. There are now more than 100 contacts to track from the initial imported case of Ebola.

That this case has become major headline news in many US news agencies highlights a couple of points:

Firstly, there is a morbid fascination with this infectious disease that has high mortality and only experimental therapy (without clinical trials, which would probably be impossible to conduct).

Secondly, many people in America (and internationally) believe that there should be zero transmission of Ebola in modern state-of-the-art U.S. healthcare facilities.

How would Singapore fare if someone carrying Ebola came through Changi Airport? It is my belief that we will not do better, and I will try to elaborate on this in the next post.