Dallas

Dallas County Doctors Answer Ebola Questions

Twitterchat Q&A reached an estimated 2.5 million people

The Dallas County Medical Society participated in a Twitter chat on Tuesday to answer the public's questions about the Ebola virus.

The #AskDCMS hashtag reached an estimated 2.5 million Twitter users, according to the DCMS, which is an advocacy organization for 7,000 doctors in Dallas County.

A team of doctors spent an hour answering approximately 127 questions from Twitter users, ranging from concerns over how Ebola is contracted, to how to properly disinfect a surface that came into contact with Ebola waste.

"We've had a lot of common questions asked about the airborne transmission, people want to know whether the virus might change or mutate into an airborne virus," said Dr. John Carlo, chair of the Dallas County Medical Society Emergency Response Committee. "And from the research that we've read and the literature this doesn't seem to be possible."

"A lot of great questions," Carlo said about the Twitterchat. "Listen you know Ebola is a new, emerging threat. We all have concerns. Certainly [with] what we have seen in West Africa this is a serious public health threat. Now it's here in Dallas. [We] have to be particularly concerned. So we're not surprised with the questions we're seeing."

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