Iowa, Illinois and other midwestern states appear to be in the grip of a mumps outbreak. The CDC reports that more than 600 people have been infected by just two carriers of the virus. Two infected people on two separate airplanes. That fact alone demonstrates how easy it is these days for a virus to travel from one country to another, from one state to another, in hours. In fact, most travelers who are infected with a virus don't even know it until it's too late. One of the mumps carriers actually had a test by her own physician before she left on her trip. While she was on her trip, her test results came back positive. Too late. She had already exposed hundreds of people on her flight, and in half dozen airports. The mumps virus can easily spread through sneezing, coughing and even laughing, so it's easy to understand how two airline passengers could cause an epidemic. Strange thing is, those two passengers who may have infected hundreds of people told the CDC that they did indeed have vaccinations for mumps. But we don't really need to know the reason why the outbreak is happening, what we need to know is how can we protect ourselves when we must sit so close to other people and breathe recirculated air onboard a plane. The answer is NanoMasks. The removable filter on a NanoMask is sprayed with a viricide, the only filter in the world that is treated with a viricide to kill pathogens on contact. It's a viricide that is harmless to breathe, yet deadly to pathogens of all kinds and sizes. We usually think of flu season as a time of high risk for infection by our fellow travelers. But it's time to change our thinking to a more critical state, because all sorts of viruses are on the move. Human infectious diseases have been on the upswing since the 1970s and 1980s. Here's a short list of recent outbreaks: Mumps Influenza NoroVirus Tuberculosis Polio (in 11 countries still) Measles (in Russia and the U.S.) Chikungunya fever (3,115 cases reported in the Indian Ocean Islands) Coronavirus HKU1 (brand new virus started in Hong Kong, now in the U.S.) West Nile Virus Scientists speculate that there are many factors in play that could be causing the rise of new viruses and the spread of old ones. For example, climate change, increased transportation of animals, plants, anthropods, and other materials, deforestation, land reclamation, altered farming practices, irrigation projects, just to name a handful of reasons. Evolutionary biologists believe there are 50 billion known proteins in the universe. Each of those proteins has the ability to form into a virus. Isn't it time we all started wearing a NanoMask when we travel so at least if we are sick we won't spread it? A NanoMask would also protect us from those who sneeze, cough, or laugh around us. Remember this next time you visit and airport and board your flight: a sneeze travels at 600 miles per hour and stays in the area about 30 minutes. Gesundheit.