Why are people with ebola still alive?

Aren't you the humanitarian. Like Mother Teresa.

Tell ya what. You take a gun and go to the house of the two doctors who were treated and released in Atlanta and explain to them that you have to kill them to stop it from spreading. Death is one reason it spread so fast in West Africa. The cultural mores surrounding death there require family members to wash and touch the body before burial. Had they not done that, many people would still be alive today. So if you insist on killing people with Ebola, you might as well insist on killing everyone who had any contact with them, too, since contact is how it is spread.

It's not like the Black Plague where the disease was spread by fleas on mice so you could get rid of that one by burning down all the huts in the village, you know.

Because it can be cured and then it doesn't spread anymore. The cases in the U.S. are easily curable. The problem in Africa is poverty, overcrowding and lack of access to medical care. Don't go into a panic like the people in the Middle Ages who didn't know how the plague spread (they thought cats were responsible, killed all the cats, so there were no cats to keep the rat population down, which is how it really spread.)

"Why doesn't our government and all African governments shoot anybody who is infected then burn the bodies so it can no longer spread."

You're not very smart.

because it is hard to look babies in the face and shoot them.

plus - you don't know they have ebola until they start bleeding from their eyes and ears. If you killed everyone with a fever... hardly anyone would be left.

Oh that won't start a panic... Good job at thinking that one through.

.....you do know that Ebola isn't always fatal? People get better.

One possibility is that any policy of summarily killing people is thought to be more dangerous and fear-inducing than any disease.

You dont have to die.