Ebola is mowing victims in Africa and has now also landed in the West. For now two cases in the US and 100 people under observation. Four cases in Spain and 40 under observation and the World Health Organization (WHO) forecasts other possible patients in Europe.
The contagion, both in the USA and in Spain, occurred through people infested in Africa and that, in turn, before they were diagnosed with the disease, they came into contact with others by transmitting the virus.
The incubation can vary from two to 22 days - the WHO reports - and it is said that the disease immediately manifests itself with the classic symptoms immediately attributable to Ebola. It follows, therefore, that the patient can unknowingly infect other men at the time that the disease begins to conclude even if in a mild form, becoming "involuntary vector" of the disease and triggering a real "chain reaction" difficult to manage.
Taking advantage of the contingent situation, terrorist organizations such as ISIS could think to exploit its deadly potential by spreading the virus for terrorist purposes, using kamikaze carriers of the disease. Suicide bombers who may have chosen to replace the explosive belt with Ebola.
People with the pathogen incubated ready, at the time of manifestation of the first symptoms, to spread it by mingling with the crowd, contaminating public toilets, frequenting high-occupancy closed rooms such as cinemas, theaters, shopping centers and public transport. Wandering mines that could even die without ever being discovered, after having contaminated hundreds of people who would turn into themselves unaware carriers of the virus.
A scenario perhaps unthinkable in other times but certainly conceivable in a moment of high international tension, where the extreme terrorist act is becoming the prevailing element on the world stage.
The mass executions we are witnessing, the beheadings, the shooting of women and children just because non-Muslims should lead us to exclude no threat and Ebola could be part of a gloomy international scenario dominated by terrorism. The ISIS, in fact, could decide to move to an unconventional clash also using NBC materials of which the elements "N" and "C" are recoverable with some ease in the various battle theaters and the Ebola could represent the value " B ".
Biological attacks carried out with suicide bombers "infected with the virus in incubation" to be inserted, perhaps, among the thousands of refugees that cross the Mediterranean every day. Desperate that, as we know, as soon as they landed in Italy they also manage to escape the controls to disperse all over Europe. This analysis, which in a first approximation might appear exasperatingly alarmist, but which perhaps contains elements of reality that are not too remote. It is difficult to be sure that such a threat can materialize but in the doubt that it may happen I believe it is right and ethical not to underestimate the danger.
Instead it seems that such an eventuality is excluded. The interior minister reports in parliament that Italy is at risk of attacks, the Intelligence alarms that among the refugees can hide subversive cells, but nobody thinks of a possible "B" threat derived from the export of Ebola or any other agent pathogen. The minister of health, however, excludes any risk of infection in Italy with statements such as "the risk of importing the infection in Italy is absolutely remote", stating that any "risks related to irregular migration flows" are almost nil considering the duration of the paths that the migrants bring from their countries of origin to Italy.
Statements suggested by a sectoral view of the problem and which leave us perplexed in the moment that they exclude any unknowns deriving from an unconventional act of terrorism. Perhaps because the institutional leaders are still rooted in old convictions, such as: nuclear and only the atomic bomb, chemical only the bullet loaded with Iprite and biological only the anthrax spread in the US just after the September 11 with postal envelopes.
The underestimation of the overall risk, however, is considered not even justified by the intention not to create unnecessary alarmism. Approach that the contingent situation of international instability should discourage in favor of other "modus operandi". For example, borrowing from other countries the management of such a particular danger like the NBC. First of all Israel that informs the population, provides for the distribution of NBC masks at the family level, provides in every hospital areas completely isolated from the outside and cyclically involves citizens in defense exercises against the specific threat.
The eventuality of a "stuffed with a virus" kamikaze can not, in fact, go unnoticed, but must represent one of the dangers to be kept under observation to be ready to fight it.
First of all, adjust the control and management of the reception of the thousands of migrants who disembark daily on the Italian coast, bearing in mind the incubation period of the virus. Organize, therefore, specific collection centers where to keep quarantined subjects for 3 weeks that could be a source of contagion.
A commitment that is not easy to sustain but essential both for safeguarding the health of Italian citizens and for avoiding a danger that may now belong to a fairly realistic scenario.
All this still does not happen and despite the assurances on the control of possible contagions today the Rest of the Carlino informs that not even two Italian volunteers returned from the Congo have been monitored in Modena and that for their admission they have operated in an area where: we died 167 people affected by Ebola ".
Fernando Termentini
