The government of Spain imposed a health emergency situation on Thursday afternoon in Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport after a passenger flying from Paris to Madrid was suspected of having contracted the Ebola virus, El Mundo reported.

The newspaper stated that the pilot of the plane alerted the airport administration to the chill, headache and malaise of one of the passengers after which a doctor examined the passenger and prescribed hospital tests for possible Ebola virus contraction.

The worst Ebola epidemic in history began in southern Guinea at the end of 2013 and soon spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

The death toll is estimated to be over 4,400. A vaccine against the disease will reportedly be available in the summer of 2015, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Recently, cases of the Ebola virus have been reported in the Unites States as well as in a number of European countries in addition to those reported in West Africa.

A recent column, published by the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, or CIDRAP, warns that it might be possible for the Ebola virus to be transmitted through exhaled breath.

Minneapolis news station KARE reports the column, co-authored by University of Illinois-Chicago professors Dr. Lisa Brosseau and Dr. Rachael Jones, argues that current safety protocols for healthcare workers may not adequately protect them.

Brousseau claims in the column that she believes "there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients."

That means healthcare workers, caring for Ebola victims, should be wearing powered air-purifying respirators rather than simple surgical masks, Brousseau argues.

Russian news outlet Ria Novosti recently featured an interview with Professor Francis Boyle, University of Illinois College of Law, implicating the United States military-industrial complex in the current Ebola outbreak which the World Health Organization claims has now taken over 4,000 lives in West Africa.

Via Ria Novosti:

"US government agencies have a long history of carrying out allegedly defensive biological warfare research at labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. This includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is now the point agency for managing the Ebola spill-over into the US," Prof. Francis Boyle said.

"Why has the Obama administration dispatched troops to Liberia when they have no training to provide medical treatment to dying Africans? How did Zaire/Ebola get to West Africa from about 3,500km away from where it was first identified in 1976?"

"Why is the CDC not better-prepared for this emergency after the US government spent about $70 billion since the anthrax attacks of October 2001 to prepare for this exact contingency?" Boyle said.

Regional or widespread war, terrorism, cyber attacks, etc., are all useful vehicles to conjure mass confusion, and can also be used as scapegoats for the eventual downfall of our economy. That said, a viral pandemic truly surpasses them all in effectiveness. All other tragedies could easily be tied to the first "domino" or "linchpin" (as Rand Corporation calls it) of Ebola transmission, but the strategy goes deeper than this.

This is an incredibly useful strategy when used on the ignorant. And as I pointed out last week in my column, "U.S. government fails to stop yet another invasion," it's a sad fact that most of the people you meet in this life are fundamentally and functionally ignorant.

So I believe the spread of Ebola may be desired by certain power brokers. Here's why.

But, but, but they said it wasn't contagious unless you came into contact with bodily fluids. According to the CDC, the 2nd health-care worker infected with Ebola traveled on Frontier Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on October 13th and are asking all 132 passengers on the flight to get tested. One question... what about the thousands of people that those 132 passengers came in contact with in the last 2 days?

• NEW TEXAS EBOLA PATIENT FLEW DOMESTICALLY NIGHT BEFORE FEVER APPEARED -- CDC

Via Bloomberg,

Second health-care worker with Ebola traveled on Frontier flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas on Oct. 13, CDC says in e-mailed statement.

CDC asking 132 passengers on flight to call 1-800-CDC-INFO, plan to begin interviewing passengers about flight, monitoring those who need it.

Health-care worker exhibited no signs, symptoms of illness while on flight, according to crew.

A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who had "extensive contact" on "multiple occasions" with Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola after a preliminary test, officials said Sunday.

Confirmatory testing is being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Test results are expected to be announced later in the day.

The patient is a nurse, an official who is familiar with this case told CNN.

She was involved in Duncan's second visit to the hospital, when he was admitted for treatment, and was wearing protective gear as prescribed by the CDC: gown, gloves, mask and shield, Texas Health Resources chief clinical officer Dan Varga said.

She is in stable condition, Varga said. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday.

At the moment, the Ebola virus is ravaging three countries - Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - where it is doubling every few weeks, but singular cases and clusters of them are cropping up in dense population centers across the world. An entirely separate Ebola outbreak in the Congo appears to be contained, but illustrates an important point: even if the current outbreak (to which some are already referring as a pandemic) is brought under control, continuing deforestation and natural habitat destruction in the areas where the fruit bats that carry the virus live make future outbreaks quite likely.

Ebola's mortality rate can be as high as 70%, but seems closer to 50% for the current major outbreak. This is significantly worse than the Bubonic plague, which killed off a third of Europe's population. Previous Ebola outbreaks occurred in rural, isolated locales, where they quickly burned themselves out by infecting everyone within a certain radius, then running out of new victims. But the current outbreak has spread to large population centers with highly mobile populations, and the chances of such a spontaneous end to this outbreak seem to be pretty much nil.

Ebola has an incubation period of some three weeks during which patients remain asymptomatic and, specialists assure us, noninfectious. However, it is known that some patients remain asymptomatic throughout, in spite of having a strong inflammatory response, and can infect others. Nevertheless, we are told that those who do not present symptoms of Ebola - such as high fever, nausea, fatigue, bloody stool, bloody vomit, nose bleeds and other signs of hemorrhage - cannot infect others. We are also told that Ebola can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected individual, but it is known that among pigs and monkeys Ebola can be spread through the air, and the possibility of catching it via a cough, a sneeze, a handrail or a toilet seat is impossible to discount entirely. It is notable that many of the medical staff who became infected did so in spite of wearing protective gear - face masks, gloves, goggles and body suits. In short, nothing will guarantee your survival short of donning a space suit or relocating to a space station.

A person in Quebec with symptoms of the Ebola virus is being treated in a hospital in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. According to the regional health and social services agency, the patient was recently in contact with people who may have been exposed to Ebola. "I have to highlight that our suspicion is very weak," said Dr. Éric Lampron-Goulet, a regional public health official. "We did a test out of precaution." Lampron-Goulet said the patient has a fever and that, combined with having contact with West African travelers, is sufficient to merit tests. He said the patient has been isolated while the tests are underway. Tests have been sent to the public health laboratory in Quebec and results are expected within 24 to 36 hours. He also said Quebec's health system is prepared for Ebola is following the procedure for treating suspicious cases. - CBC

Brazil:

Fears are growing that the deadly Ebola virus has hit a new continent as a missionary in Brazil undergoes tests for the infection. If the Brazilian case is confirmed, it would mean the disease has spread to South America for the first time. The suspected patient is a 47-year-old man from Guinea, one of the African countries that have been ravaged by the disease. He has been described in local media as a missionary and he was taken in an air force plane from the southern state of Parana to the National Infectious Disease Institute in Rio de Janeiro on Friday morning. It came after he arrived at a health centre in the town of Cascavel with a fever the previous afternoon. The health ministry said today that the patient was 'in good shape' and his slight fever had now subsided. Minister Arthur Chioro noted that the patient had been in Brazil for the maximum incubation period for the Ebola virus of 21 days. The result of a test for the virus should be available by early Saturday, he said. - Mail

Czechoslovakia:

Czech Republic registers its first case of suspected Ebola, who returned from Liberia 22 days ago, Czech chief sanitary officer Vladimir Valenta said Thursday. The man, 56, has fever but no other Ebola symptoms, and was in isolation at Prague's Na Bulovce hospital, Xinhua quoted Valenta as saying. (Read: Ebola facts - frequently asked questions (FAQ))'As the only symptom has been fever so far, we hope that it might be another disease, for instance, malaria,' he said, adding that all people whom the patient has met since his return are being checked. Hospital sources said the results of tests conducted are expected Friday. - Health Site

The chorus of U.S. health officials constantly reassuring the public that Ebola can't transmit through the air is quickly tailing off, as virologists and other disease experts say "not so fast." Health experts know very little about the nature of the Ebola strain now in circulation, they say, and it appears as though the current iteration of the disease is much more virulent than previously believed.

Dr. C.J. Peters, a former researcher who worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study Ebola's transmissibility in humans, is just one of many who now say that airborne transmission of Ebola can't be ruled out as an impossibility. There simply isn't enough data to suggest otherwise, he says.

Carlos III hospital treating virus-hit nurse Teresa Romero Ramos suffers staff shortage amid concerns over training and safety

Concerns about a lack of training and safety standards have left some staff refusing to attend to possible Ebola cases at Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where the first known person to contract the disease outside west Africa is being treated.

Fourteen people are in quarantine at the hospital, including four health workers who treated Teresa Romero Ramos, the Spanish nurse who contracted the virus after treating an Ebola patient repatriated from Sierra Leone.

Seven people, including two hairdressers who had given Romero a beauty treatment before she was diagnosed, entered the isolation unit on Thursday. None has tested positive for the disease except Romero, whose condition was described by the hospital as serious but stable. Her treatment has included injections with antibodies extracted from the blood of Ebola survivors.