'm gonna go off in the weeds over here on Ebola and ramble a bit but these are my thoughts.
I have spent quite a bit of time reading the history of Ebola and had done so before this current situation. I enjoy reading nonfiction (yeah, I am odd that way). It is simply a fascinating topic I have been reading on and researching for hours over the past year or so. Yes, I know you may not find it equally fascinating.
To me the scary part is that this virus can be so hard to contain. It seemingly disappeared for years only to resurface almost 2 decades (in 1995) after the first outbreak in 1976. Then the next outbreaks were in 2007 and then 2012.
So how does a virus do that? Researchers finally determined that during those times when it was not killing humans, it was residing, surviving and being passed along in primates and fruit-bats (megamega bats or bats that can have a 3 ft wingspan). Then a human would come in contact with an infected animal by being bitten, by contact with the virus when killing and preparing a bat or primate to eat (cooking kills the virus so eating a properly cooked infected animal will not infect the person eating it but handling the infected raw meat without protection could.) or some other contaminating contact with an infected animal and a human. Primates and fruit bats are apparently popular to eat among some people in those regions.
To me, it is horrifying that it can survive so long in the animal population just biding its time until it gets to the next human. Now luckily there is no roaming source of primates in the wild in America and we do not have the same abundance and variety of fruit bats here in America (as far as i can tell from reading. There is a bit of confusion/conflicting info about or American leaf nosed bats which seem to be fruit bats/megabats). Typical Americans certainly aren't killing and cutting up primates and bats for food here. Ok, so that sounds somewhat hopeful for us. We don't appear to have the same supporting ecosystem here in the US to sustain the virus for years or decades between outbreaks. BUT....
We all know of "invasive species" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasive_species_in_North_America)which are animal, plant or insects which have come from one country/continent to another and caused havoc there, upsetting the ecosystem, wiping out competing species, adapting and thriving in their new home. Such invasive species may have been brought by accident or on purpose. (Giant snakes in the everglades and Asian Carp are two examples of invasive species).
So Ebola could very well find a new "host" here among our animals and wildlife. We just don't know yet. We have leaf nosed bats which seem to be classified as fruit bats. We may have a species here that is not found in Africa that could be a perfect host for Ebola. We just don't know. We have not been very good at predicting how invasive species will behave. Many were first introduced to solve a problem but caused multiple other problems that did not exist before they arrived and thrived and threat to destroy ecosystems and populations of species).
Once here they usually cannot be gotten rid of. They take hold and take over. That is what worries me. It is the non human "hosts" here that can sustain and transfer these viruses and we would not know for tears or decades until it came into contact with a human and infected them.
Apparently there is a blackmarket for "bush meat" which includes primates and other animals from the wilds of Africa.
http://rollingout.com/news/africans-eating-monkey-meat-may-expose-america-ebola-virus/#_ . As gross as it may seem to us to eat primates, many Africans in the US may want bushmeat as a desirable favorite food from their homeland. So it may not be an infected human that brings Ebola to our country but rather a black market which usually has very poor hygiene standards to begin with.
It's not just America. Just so many possibilities for this virus to go global.
ETA: Thanks Soulmagnet for the link about dogs being able to carry it without being sick and potentially infect humans. The fact that canines can carry it without getting sick and potentially infect humans is scary to think about.
