Last week as the news surrounding the hospitalization of an Ebola victim in Dallas, I passed through the Dallas/Fort Worth airport on my way to Austin to give a series of food safety speeches.  By the time I got home came the report of the first death in the United States.  This morning came the report of a infected health care worker at the Dallas Hospital where the original victim died last week.

The outbreak, which to date has primarily impacted West Africa – Total Cases: 8399, Laboratory-Confirmed Cases: 4655, Total Deaths: 4033 – has now clearly hit our shores.

The World Health Organization reports that it is “thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.”

It does make you think.