Rabies is rather frightening to me, but it’s not nearly as freaky as viral hemorrhagic fevers. My manager recently told me that she knows the wife of Ryan Havelka, a 29 year old North Dakota man that died in September of Hantavirus. He developed Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome after doing some construction work outdoors, where he presumably and inadvertently aerosolized infected rat feces. Eek.

On a slightly different, and perhaps more uplifting note, the woman in Germany who accidentally pricked herself with a needle while working with ebola was declared healthy and released from isolation last week. An experimental vaccine was administered within 48 hours of the needle stick. She did generate a small antibody response, but without sensitive tests against ebola’s nuclear proteins, they can’t be sure if the response was against the vaccine or the virus. At this point, they’re not even sure the virus ever entered her body. Hopefully this incident will push the development and further testing of an ebola vaccine, if for no other reason than to help the hypochondriacs sleep at night.