The CDC Is Using Twitter to Explain Ebola for the Second Time in Two Months

 Two months ago, when U.S. health officials first took to Twitter to explain Ebola, the virus had killed just under 800 people in West Africa.

Now, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hosts its second online chat about the virus, the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea has claimed 3,865 lives. That number includes Thomas Eric Duncan, a 42-year-old man who died of Ebola in Texas on Wednesday morning. Duncan, who arrived in Dallas more than two weeks ago from Liberia, was the first person to be diagnosed with the disease on American soil.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that people who fly into five major American airports from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea will be screened for fever, one of the first symptoms of Ebola. 

On Wednesday afternoon, as they did back in August, the tweets started pouring in. Here's a sampling of the Internet's questions for @CDCgov and its affiliate Twitter accounts, streamlined under #CDCChat. Follow the whole thing here.

Many users wondered whether an Ebola epidemic is possible in the U.S.:

@CDCgov How likely is it that the ebola virus could become a pandemic in America? #CDCchat

— King Methuselah (@R0n2100) October 8, 2014

Others got a little more specific:

what are the chances of Ebola coming to Kansas? #cdcchat

— Justin Alpough (@Justinalpough) October 8, 2014

There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, and doctors are not sure exactly how experimental drugs have cured some people of the disease, which has some asking:

How close are the pharmacy companies in creating a vaccine for #Ebola ? #CDCchat

— Karthik N G (@iKarthikng) October 8, 2014

One user's inquiry was especially timely. On Wednesday, Spanish authorities euthanizedExcalibur, the pet dog of a nurse who contracted Ebola this week, despite crowd-sourced efforts to spare his life.

@CDCemergency Can be pets infected by ebola? Are pets been traced about ebola? #CDCchat

— alfonsotwr (@alfonsotwr) October 8, 2014

And some users, well, took the Twitter chat less seriously than others:

On a scale of 1 to #Benghazi, how much of #Ebola is the result of Obama's plot to impose an Islamic caliphate on the US? @CDCgov #CDCchat

— Col. James H. Miller (@jaymills) October 8, 2014