I'm no expert and I'm just as frightened by the spread of this disease as everyone else, but I think people in this thread, and the media in general, are being a tad "end-of-the-world"-y about this without looking at some of the important facts. Namely:

1) The article mentions the R0 of Ebola and claims it is between 1-2 in the current outbreak. Previous outbreaks of Ebola have been as high as 2.7. But this is relatively low compared to other diseases... the R0 of the Measles for instance is 12-18 (and nobody is really talking about the recent outbreaks in the US due to parents not vaccinating their children). Chances are, this rate would even be lower in the West because conditions in African slums and even hospitals are downright deplorable. Doctors aren't using suits or even gloves to examine patients, medical staff are reusing disposable needles, hospitals rely on family members to wash soiled linens because they don't have in-house cleaning services like western hospitals, etc. And don't forget that cultural norms are feeding the spread of the disease: well family members are observed to be sharing beds with sick loved ones in hospitals, people are practicing cultural burial routines of washing and in some cases kissing deceased loved ones, people are still eating the meat of things like bats and gorillas that are sick with the virus (and even found dead), etc. These are all things that just wouldn't happen in the West. People also do much better here at heeding the advice of the medical professionals - for instance, bodies of people who had died of Ebola would like be burned without concern for any regular traditions, without much complaint.

2) Part of the reason Ebola is so scary is the high fatality rate cited in articles: 50-90%. If you extrapolate to the entire planet, this sounds like it would be devastating to the human race. But is this the actual fatality rate? Western hospitals do a much better job of carefully monitoring patients and tending to every minor development. The main problem with Ebola isn't that the body can't fight it, it's that it kills you before your body can recover - the drastic difference in care between the West and Africa would likely make a huge difference in mortality. Make no mistake, this is a deadly disease, but probably not quite as bad as 50-90% in the West.

3) This article and others like it have shared the concern that Ebola could mutate into something transmissible by air. This would make the R0 of the disease skyrocket up into something that could quickly overwhelm Western medicine and very rapidly turn into something perhaps even more devastating than the plague. It's possible of course the virus could mutate in this way, of course, it's already believed that it can spread like this in pigs. One important thing to recognize is that Ebola in humans affects the liver not the lungs, which poses a barrier to being airborne. In addition, to become truly airborne, the virus would have to mutate it's outer coating to resist the drying effect of the air. So in order to become transmissible by air, it would have to mutate 2 different major adaptations and completely change everything about itself. The example I've read is that we don't worry about HIV becoming transmissible by air, and it is thought to mutate more quickly than Ebola. We've never observed any deadly virus change it's method of delivery, although of course airborne diseases evolved that adaptation in the first place.

None of these points mean we should sit back and do nothing. We need to help at minimum because of the following reasons:

1) People are dying and we can help them. With effective medical care, the mortality rate as mentioned in point 2 above should go down.

2) Ebola is destabilizing the region. This is already a region prone to state failure, corrupt and ruthless governments, etc. This disease could well cause wars in Africa, which in turn would make conditions worse and likely increase the fatality rate and the infection rate.

3) While there is a reasonable scientific case to be made against the unlikelihood of the mutation of the virus into airborne transmissible, it's possible and very scary. When considering the risks, we need to multiply the rather small chance against the rather large negative effect of such a change. We need to stop this to avoid this thing from becoming more deadly.