As health-care workers in West Africa struggle to contain the latest Ebola outbreak, scary headlines in the U.S. are spreading much faster than the disease.
Although deadlier than many infectious diseases, the virus is still extremely rare when compared with other, much more common communicable diseases. Influenza and pneumonia, for example, kill more than 50,000 people in the U.S. annually, according to the latest data from the CDC.
There have only been three confirmed Ebola cases (including one death) in the U.S. And five other cases have been or are being treated in the United States, and one U.S. citizen died abroad.