The surprise new Ebola threat

 
HEALTH officials in Texas are faced with a second major dilemma amid the current Ebola crisis: What to do with the pet dog of the nurse who contracted the disease?
Authorities are currently trying to find an appropriate place to monitor a dog that belongs to Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted the disease after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Duncan died last week after becoming the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S.
MORE: US nurse with Ebola identified as Nina Pham

Ms Pham’s apartment is being thoroughly cleaned after tests over the weekend confirmed she is infected. A Dallas spokeswoman says the city will make sure the dog is cared for.
It comes following a public uproar in Spain after authorities elected to euthanise a dog named Excalibur that belonged to nursing assistant Teresa Romero who remains in hospital with the disease — despite the animal showing no signs of the virus.
Animal rights activists took to the streets in more than 20 cities to protest the decision, while a change.org petition gained more than 407,000 signatures online.
Another 16 people including Romero’s husband, colleagues and a hairdresser are being monitored for symptoms.

A woman with the name of the dog Excalibur painted on her face stages a protest against euthanasia of the pet dog of a Spanish nursing assistant Teresa Romero. Pic: Manu Fernandez. 

Locals and animal rights activists protest as police remove Excalibur, the dog of ebola infected Spanish nurse Teresa and her husband Javier Limon, from their home. Pic: Pic: AFP/ Curto De La T

It's not yet known if dogs can catch and spread Ebola — a disease which is naturally found in fruit bats, according to the World Health Organisation.
It’s also been recorded in monkeys, apes, chimpanzees and pigs, with humans thought to catch the disease from hunting animals for their meat in Africa.

A study from 2005 suggests there is a theoretical risk that dogs can pass the virus to humans and virologists recommend treading with caution.
Britain’s Warwick University professor Andrew Easton said: “The wise move is to ... assume they (dogs) do represent a risk to humans.”
Investigators studying a 2001 outbreak in Gabon found traces of Ebola antibodies in dogs — a sign that the animals had been infected at some point.

Spanish authorities ordered the dog euthanised despite it being unclear whether he had the disease. Pic: Pedro Armestre

However it was unable to determine whether the dogs had picked up the virus from a natural source, such as bats, monkeys, apes — or from humans themselves. It also failed to answer whether they could infect humans.
“The answer is that we don’t know, because no one has actually studied it,” said Prof. Easton.
“But if those dogs are carrying the virus, they are definitely a potential source. They have to be considered a risk to anyone who handles the dogs or comes into close contact with secretions or faecal material from those dogs.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stressed there have been “no reports of pets becoming sick” or “playing a role in transmission of Ebola to humans”. It is working with the American Veterinary Medical Association and others to develop “guidance for the US pet population”.

US nurse Nina Pham contracted the disease after caring for an infected patient. 

Ebola spreads through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person such as blood, sweat, vomit, faeces, urine, saliva or semen. There must be an entry point to transmit the disease such as a cut, touching the mouth, nose or eyes, or having sex. That is why contaminated workers wear protective clothing.
The World Health Organization says blood, faeces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill and the whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.
Symptoms include headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pain, or unexplained bruising or bleeding.