I have heard (randomly) that Ebola can be present in peoples' sweat, for example. But during the incubation process, the viral load in someone's body is fairly low. So the chances of getting it from a glancing contact from the perspiration of an infected person ... is pretty small. And by the time the viral load becomes high in an infected person - they fell like "death warmed over" anyway. They are not going to be walking around, or going down to the local fitness clinic. They will be desperately seeking medical attention.

The Ebola virus seems to be "tougher" than the AIDS virus, for example. AIDS really cannot survive outside the warm moist confines of the human body - it dies rapidly. Ebola seems to be able to last for a few days on some surfaces. But more info is needed on this.

If Ebola mutates so that it can survive for longer times in the environment - that would not be helpful. The risk would be that if, for example, you picked up a plastic water bottle that was held by an Ebola patient, and then wiped your eyes, some real risk of infection would exist.

I think they are trying to stop Ebola now in West Africa. The last thing the world needs is a huge expansion in the numbers of people infected with this illness (which would happen if the virus got out of control in places like Ghana and the Ivory Coast). The concern would be that eventually new mutations of ebola could develop.

Pete