Ebola has infected few Americans, but it has gone viral on the US campaign trail, with politicians blaming one another for exacerbating the health crisis and feuding over how to contain it.
With 18 days until the nation's mid-term elections -- which may well see Republicans seize control of the Senate from Democrats -- Ebola is a political shuttlecock, battered around in campaign ads, in candidate debates, at congressional hearings and by presidential hopefuls past and future.
Republicans are slamming President Barack Obama for lack of leadership while Democrats attack rivals for seeking to slash funding for research on infectious diseases.
The blame game was on display on the campaign trail in several battleground states including Iowa, where Senate candidate Joni Ernst accused Obama -- and her Democratic rival Bruce Braley -- of dropping the ball.
"Unfortunately our administration, including congressman Braley, has been very reactive rather than proactive," she said in their recent debate.
"We have seen the threat from Ebola for the past several months, and I would encourage temporary travel bans and additional screenings for travelers" from Ebola-impacted West African nations.
Braley and another Senate hopeful, Colorado's Cory Gardner, broke from campaigning Thursday to join a House hearing on the US Ebola response, and Gardner used the opportunity to rap Obama for failing to implement a travel ban that many Republicans have called for.
Obama for his part yesterday said that closing US borders to citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone would not make Americans safer as it would only encourage people to skirt existing safety controls.
In North Carolina, Republican Thom Tillis linked the Ebola threat with a hot-button political issue: illegal immigration along the southern US border.
"We've got an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors that can come across the border. We need to seal the border and secure it," Tillis said in an October debate with incumbent Senator Kay Hagan.
