ANigerian health official wearing a protective suit waits to screen passengers for the Ebola virus at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria. 
 
 Is interest in hazmat suits up because of all-encompassing fear or All Hallow's Eve? 
 
 Amid fears about the spread of Ebola, the suits are selling for $1,300 on Amazon and being bid on for the more standard $51 on eBay while shares of a company that makes them are spiking this week. 
 
 Protected healthcare workers in Africa and elsewhere are seeking to stop an outbreak that has killed thousands of people and left thousands more orphaned and now moved into countries like Spain and the U.S. So would hazmat suits help regular Americans who want to protect themselves from the deadly disease? 
 
 Doctors say the suits are better for Halloween scares than Ebola ones. 
 
 Even so, the suits are on the fronts of many people's minds and newspapers. 
 
 An ad on Amazon explains the outerwear doesn't guarantee protection -- "A great combo pack that may help to protect against Ebola" -- but it also notes that the entire package of 1 Tyvek suit with built-in hood and booties, 2 pairs of gloves, 2 surgical masks, comfortable safety glasses and duct tape to form a seal between the suit and the gloves is "small enough to keep one in your home and one kit in your car for a quick get away." 
 
 Meanwhile, shares of Lakeland Industries, a suit manufacturer, rocketed up 50 percent to hit a year-high Thursday, the fifth consecutive day of gains for the company, according to The Street. 
 
 A BBC News headline asked "Can this suit stop Ebola from spreading?" when the British Department for International Development began sending 600,000 protective suits to West Africa to help medical teams grappling with a crisis. (Short answer: Obviously, among health workers dealing with the diseased.) 
 
 Later, the BBC raised new questions when it ran a story under this headline: Ebola suit of Spanish patient 'may have touched her face' 
 
 Thursday, The Daily Mail directly asked an infectious disease expert how useful the suits are for the general public. 
 
 University of Pittsburgh Dr. Amesh Adalja told the British outlet, "A suit won't have much use other than as a Halloween costume." 
 
 He called them "a waste of money" and added, "Ebola does not pose a risk to the general public because it is not contagious unless you come in contact with the bodily fluids of a symptomatic individual." He stressed the virus doesn't spread like the common cold. 
 
 The suits aren't easy to wear, either. Dr. Joseph Fair, an American virologist who has worked in Sierra Leone for more than 10 years, told NPR that being inside the suit is "like being in a steam room" and "an exhaustive process" because of the heat, mask, boots, goggles and focus that's required. 
 
 Wednesday, word that a "possible Ebola patient" had been admitted to an Inglewood hospital emergency room stirred up more worry, though it was eased when the Los Angeles County's public health chief said the patient was not suspected of having the disease. Coming on the same day as news of the death in Dallas of the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. and the Spanish government's deliberate killing of a dog whose owner has the disease, perhaps it was inevitable that people would consider suiting up. If only for Halloween. ||||| NEW YORK If Halloween is supposed to be spooky, at least some costumes worn this year by party-goers in the United States promise to be terrifying. 
 
 Some of the more ghoulish trick-or-treaters will be dressed as emergency responders to people sick with Ebola, head to toe in protective clothing, according to costume previews in social media. 
 
 Ghosts, vampires and fairy princesses will likely continue to be the most popular costumes for the Oct. 31 fancy dress party. But every year, it seems edgier costumes emerge from news headlines. 
 
 Costumes are meant to lampoon, "but the world is getting more serious. This is scary stuff," said Tony Bianchi, manager of New York Costumes in Manhattan. 
 
 In past years, the store has sold such ripped-from-the-headlines costumes as White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Princess Diana after her fatal car crash and the Chilean miners trapped underground in 2010. 
 
 The Ebola virus that has killed nearly 4,000 people in west Africa seems to be this year's favorite among some planning for Halloween. 
 
 "If you wanna scare the hell out of people this #Halloween just dress up as #Ebola," tweeted @samkalidi. 
 
 Photos on Twitter have shown costumes based upon Ebola workers clad in goggles, rubber gloves and full-body protective suits. 
 
 "Im gonna be #Ebola for #halloween this year cuz thats whats hip now," @Killa_tay_tay posted on Twitter. 
 
 Bianchi predicted costumes related to Ebola would be homemade, and said that no manufacturer had produced them. 
 
 "There are certain things - you just don't go there," he said. 
 
 Some people on social media appear to be contemplating costumes based on militants from the group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, although many said it was a tasteless choice. 
 
 "Note to idiots: don't dress up as #ISIS for #Halloween unless you want a realistic bullet wound as part of your costume," tweeted @sandykaren. 
 
 (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Frances Kerry) ||||| (CNN) The nurse in Texas seemed to have taken all the precautions needed to protect herself from Ebola. 
 
 She wore a mask, gown, shield and gloves. Her patient, a man who contracted the virus in Africa, was in isolation at the Dallas hospital where she worked. 
 
 And yet the woman -- whose name has not been released -- still contracted Ebola, marking the first known transmission ever in the United States . A nurse in Spain who also treated an Ebola patient also caught the virus. She is in critical condition and being treated by 50 health care workers, Spanish authorities said Monday. 
 
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday there was a breach in protocol in Texas, but officials haven't elaborated on what that breach was. Instead, they said the protocols laid out for American hospitals work. 
 
 So what happened? How could a nurse at an American hospital contract the virus? Is the situation a one-off, an instance of human error, something that probably wouldn't occur again? Or could there be more to it? 
 
 How it happened 
 
 On Monday morning, an official with direct knowledge of the Texas nurse's case told CNN that CDC disease detectives have several times interviewed the Texas nurse and think there are "inconsistencies" in the type of personal protective gear that she wore and with the process used to put the gear on and remove it. 
 
 The nurse who tested positive for the virus worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. 
 
 CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden has said the agency is considering several possibilities as to how that breach may have happened, including whether the infection was spread when the protective equipment was removed or when the patient, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, received kidney dialysis or respiratory intubation. 
 
 Those measures were "a desperate measure to try to save his life," Frieden said. "Both of those procedures may spread contaminated materials and are considered high-risk procedures." 
 
 "When you have potentially soiled or contaminated gloves or masks or other things, to remove those without any risk of any contaminated material ... touching you and being then on your clothes or face or skin ... is not easy to do right." 
 
 Or the problem could have been something else entirely. 
 
 CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen said precautions among health care workers can actually go overboard sometimes. The workers are supposed to double their gloves in some situations, she said. Triple gloving is a violation of CDC protocol and could make things worse. 
 
 "Then you need to take off three pairs of gloves ... gloves with infectious stuff on them," she said. 
 
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 How troubling it is 
 
 The CDC concedes the transmission is worrisome. 
 
 "It is possible in the coming days that we will see additional cases of Ebola," Frieden said. 
 
 That's because others who provided care to Duncan could have had the same kind of breach as the infected nurse. 
 
 The official who has direct knowledge of the Texas case told CNN that health authorities will make daily visits to dozens of Dallas health care workers who treated Duncan between September 28 and October 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. 
 
 The workers have been monitoring their own health, including taking their own temperature. They were previously not considered high risk because they were wearing protective gear, the official said. The CDC is still compiling a list of health care workers who came into contact with Duncan, the official said. 
 
 The public areas of the nurse's apartment complex have been decontaminated and her neighbors have been notified. And the city of Dallas made a reverse-911 call to residents, notifying them of the city's second Ebola case. 
 
 "I think it needs to be put into context that ... you can't make an extrapolation that this is now a danger more so to the American people," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 
 
 But the fear is spreading. 
 
 When a passenger on a flight from New York to Los Angeles fell ill Sunday, the biggest concern was Ebola. The plane was taken to a remote gate at Los Angeles International Airport. After a few hours, officials determined the woman did not appear to have Ebola, and other passengers were allowed to leave. 
 
 And in Louisiana, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is seeking a temporary restraining order to block the disposal of incinerated waste from Duncan's personal items at a Louisiana landfill. 
 
 "There are too many unknowns at this point, and it is absurd to transport potentially hazardous Ebola waste across state lines," Caldwell said Sunday. 
 
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 What is being done 
 
 President Barack Obama wants federal authorities to immediately take further measures to ensure health care workers are able to follow protocols for treating Ebola patients. 
 
 Of the thousands of hospitals in the United States, only four have been training for years to deal with highly infectious diseases like Ebola: Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, The Nebraska Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, and Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana. 
 
 "They have the management, the processes, the implementation in place that if an Ebola patient comes in, just right away they know what to do," said Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, who teaches public health preparedness at Penn State University. 
 
 But if someone with symptoms of Ebola shows up at any other hospital, as Duncan did, the hospital might not be ready. 
 
 "It may not be that every single hospital is in fact prepared for this," said David Sanders, associate professor of biology at Purdue University. 
 
 "We may have to think about regional centers that are best prepared to deal with Ebola patients." 
 
 Another step in the battle: screening. 
 
 On Saturday, passengers arriving from the three countries hardest hit by Ebola started getting special screening, including having their temperature taken, at New York's JFK airport. 
 
 Washington's Dulles, Newark, Chicago's O'Hare and Atlanta international airports will begin screening Thursday. 
 
 'The time to act is long overdue' 
 
 The country's largest nursing organization, National Nurses United, surveyed 2,000 members. Of them, 76% said their hospital hasn't communicated any policy about how to admit Ebola-infected patients. And 85% said their hospital hasn't provided education on Ebola where the nurses can interact and ask questions. 
 
 Nurses "are alarmed at the inadequate preparation they see at their hospitals," said the group's executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro. 
 
 "The time to act is long overdue," she said.
– Not that it's a huge surprise, but Reuters reports that its informal survey of social media suggests that Ebola is going to be a major Halloween theme this year. The ultra-dedicated might try to dress up as the virus itself, but otherwise expect to see a lot of makeshift hazmat suits. Generally speaking, these are going to be homemade get-ups, because, as the manager of New York Costumes explains, no major costume manufacturer will touch the subject. "There are certain things—you just don't go there," he says. Some people may be shelling out for the real thing, of course. Whether because of Halloween or paranoia, suits of all kinds are selling on eBay and Amazon, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. "A great combo pack that may help to protect against Ebola," read the ad for one suit on Amazon, and, hey, it's "small enough to keep one in your home and one kit in your car for a quick get away." One company surely happy about the trend is Lakeland Industries, a maker of a hazmat suits whose shares surged more than 50% this week and have more than doubled over last year, reports the Street.