An infected individual might believe that they have a greater chance of surviving if they're treated in the US. After all, we've brought back our own infected folks, supplied them with experimental therapies, and they've survived. Send that through the grapevine a few times, and it could very easily create the impression that the US has a cure.
To not be hassled at the airport? The last time I checked, airports aren't actually known as the places where people expect reasonable and fair treatment.
And having read an article about Eric Duncan in the German "Stern" about how his case had been mis-handled by the U.S. agencies, I cannot blame anyone trying to take it into his own hands, even if I can see why this could be even more irresponsible.
Because you think you just have the flu, not ebola, and you don't want to waste time with some dumb checkpoint. You want to get home to see your family and finish this god-awful and way-too-long business trip.
To get into the country. Far better to be in the USA or Western Europe with Ebola than Africa. Besides, everyone thinks, "Maybe it's nothing serious; maybe it's just a cold."
To indulge in a bit of perhaps undeserved paranoia: What were/are the messages coming from the treatment and outcome of the patient in Texas?
On the one hand, a highly fatal disease and typical, systemic mishandling. On the other, an indication that travelling to the U.S. won't save you.
I have no evidence that the latter message was deliberately manufactured (implying all sorts of terrible things). But I'm certain there were and are people in positions of authority thinking about this.
A citizen of one of the countries where there is an outbreak would need a US visa to even get on the plane.
I was thinking about that the other day; taking the need for a visa into account, it's unlikely the deceased patient in Texas traveled to the U.S. in response to exposure.
From the reporting I've read and heard, it's fairly conclusively known that he did not.
He helped a neighbor thought to be suffering complications from pregnancy -- she was in her 7th month -- getting a cab and perhaps also accompanying her to the hospital or care center; I don't recall the details on the latter part.
The general population will not be making a rush over, on airplanes. But a subset who is eligible and capable might.
Personally, from the reporting, it seems to me that the man in Texas was a good samaritan and deserving of whatever help the U.S. might be able to provide. I further consider the threatened prosecution (by Liberia, and now I read perhaps also by others) not only unkind but counter-productive -- in general, I gather, such actions force further underground and prompt people to hide potentially threatening symptoms and conditions.
Because fear (especially of death) makes people do highly irrational things. You could argue that it actually isn't irrational to lie in order to get into a 1st world country with 1st world hospitals. From a very selfish perspective of preservation, that is actually pretty rational.