Ebola: Why this outbreak is unlike any other of this disease

BROWNSVILLE, TX (KTRK) -- The Ebola scare is causing a lot of fear in Dallas and around the country. This outbreak is already far worse than any in history and concern is growing that Ebola has somehow changed.

Eyewitness News went to Brownsville to talk to a pair of former Ebola field researchers to find out why this outbreak is not like any other.

Ebola has always been a lethal killer, but in the past it killed only a few hundred. The experts who once tracked the disease and chronicled it in Level 4, virus hunters of the CDC, admit this outbreak is different, but not in ways you may expect.

Dr. Joseph McCormick and his wife Dr. Susan Fisher-Hoch spent decades finding Ebola victims and studying the disease. They now work for UT School of Public Health in Brownsville.

The couple co-authored Level 4 Virus Hunters of the CDC detailing the ravages of the disease.

They say the current strain of Ebola killing thousands of people is not very different than what they encountered in the 1970's and '80's.

Fisher-Hoch said, "It's bad enough, all I'm telling you is it's bad enough, it could be a lot worse. But I don't think that's going to be an issue."

During their field studies, Fisher-Hoch and McCormick heard many of the same fears being voiced today, that somehow Ebola is now airborne.

McCormick said, "One, we have not seen the evidence. Two, we don't have any evidence of other viruses having done that. And so I think that we are, we can safely argue, continue that this is not airborne."

But the couple says this outbreak is different. In the past, Ebola killed only a few hundred people. This time, thousands have died. They say the reason has more to do with humans than Ebola.

Fisher-Hoch said, "The conditions, the average living conditions, the squalor, the poverty, the crowding are horrendous really. So that allows a virus to spread around."

Dr. McCormick says what angers him the most about the current outbreak is that two potential vaccines were identified a decade ago, but there was no serious interest to develop them until now.

"The companies say there is no market," McCormick said. "What does that mean? It means they can't pay so we aren't going to make the vaccine. I think we have re-examine our whole value system in this light."

The former virus hunters say it is not easier to catch Ebola now than in the past, they also still believe the U.S. cases will be contained and Ebola will not run wild across the nation.