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@Anonymous wrote:

Ebola can "ride" on aerosolised particles of blood, mucous and other body fluids. Someone sneezing, for example, can cause Ebola viruses to be aerosolised where they land on other people's hands or faces. It only takes one virus entering the corner of your eye (or the corner of your mouth) to set off a full-blown infection.

In fact, a 2012 BBC article entitled "Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola" states:

Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the Ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species. In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them. In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier. After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of Ebola and were euthanized.

 

 

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Perhaps in droplets which don't travel far, so via fairly close contact - that makes sense, but some of the accounts in the press will confuse and worry some people more than necessary if they think this means the same thing as airborne transmission. 

There have been comments about the pig-monkey experiment.

To really appreciate what this study shows, we have to understand that there are significant differences between the diseases caused by Ebola Zaire in monkeys compared to pigs. Ebola Zaire infection in monkeys causes severe systemic infection and immune dysregulation leading to hemorrhagic fever with 90% fatality. In pigs the disease caused by Ebola Zaire is strikingly different. Infection is predominantly limited to the respiratory tract and the pigs get sick but recover.

This clearly indicates that virus dissemination and pathogenesis in monkeys is very different from that in pigs. It also tells us that pigs will produce far more copious infectious fluids from their respiratory tract than will a monkey.

They did the experiment again, this time with only monkeys and found that without direct contact, infectious monkeys did not transmit virus to other monkeys that were in the same room. The virus was not airborne.

http://globalbiodefense.com/2014/09/29/airborne-ebola-flight-fancy/

I know some people (some youngsters in a local pub) who are terrified that the mode of transmission could mutate into truly airborne. That would indeed be a nightmare scenario but I don't think any nasty virus has ever had a major change in its mode of transmission and also remained as virulent.  I suppose we could never say it would never happen, but at least it is believed to be highly unlikely.

I only hope that no-one attempts to try to engineer a mutation in a biosafety lab somewhere - way too risky IMO to rely on absolute containment when you factor in human error or some possible crazy terrorist plot.