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Can ebola spread through sweat?

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Sara Lewis answered

Ebola is a virus which is spread through body fluids, which are defined primarily as blood, vomit, saliva, urine and indeed sweat.

However, the virus can only be spread through direct contact. This means that infected bodily fluid would need to have touched a person's nose or mouth, or an open wound on the skin. It cannot be caught just by someone's sweat touching your skin.

This means that Ebola is not transmitted through the air, water, or by eating contaminated food. For this reason- despite the recent panic over the current outbreak- the risk of transmission is actually fairly low, far lower than that of a respiratory virus like Bird Flu or SARS.

Also, those infected with the virus are only contagious once symptoms start. Before this, they cannot transmit the virus to someone else.

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