An Ebola outbreak in a southwestern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is escalating quickly, as some health responders say they have less than a tenth of the funding needed to contain the deadly disease.
As of this week, there have been at least 57 cases and 35 deaths—a 61 percent fatality rate, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
That isn’t likely. Viruses require hosts to multiply so they favor direct contact with other hosts like coughing or sneezing. Aerosolized virus particles are deadly but they reduce the overall infections because once a majority of the population dies, there’s no one left to infect and the virus isn’t able to survive in the air long enough without a host. That’s another reason infections usually get weaker over time. The less severe the symptoms, the more people can be infected.