Ebola outbreak

[Cdnwolf]

CONAKRY, Guinea - An Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa is moving faster than efforts to control the disease, the head of the World Health Organization warned as presidents from the affected countries met Friday in Guinea's capital.

Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general, said the meeting in Conakry "must be a turning point" in the battle against Ebola, which is now sickening people in three African capitals for the first time in history.

"If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries," she said, as the WHO formally launched a $100 million response plan that includes deploying hundreds more health care workers.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the WHO pledge "needs to translate to immediate and effective action." While the group has deployed some 550 health workers, it said it did not have the resources to expand further.

Doctors Without Borders said its teams are overwhelmed with new Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and that the situation in Liberia is now "dire."

"Over the last weeks, there has been a significant surge in the epidemic - the number of cases has increased dramatically in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the disease has spread to many more villages and towns," the organization said in a statement. "After a lull in new cases in Guinea, there has been a resurgence in infections and deaths in the past week."

At least 729 people have died since cases first emerged in March: 339 in Guinea, 233 in Sierra Leone, 156 in Liberia and one in Nigeria.

[mikeo80]

And now, one American who contracted Ebola is back IN the USA fro treatment. Another will arrive tomorrow?

Am I the only one who thinks this is INSANE?

Possible Ebola vectors.

Air plane used to move patients.
Plane occupants. Pilot, co-pilot, Drs and nurses tending to patient.
Ambulance to Hospital
Ambulance driver, Dr, nurse etc
Hospital NEAR CDC. BTW, CDC is IN Atlanta, Ga.
All of the people near patient.

I mean really guys????

I do not want to see any one die. But now you bring a LIVE case of Ebola to the USA????

I am very confused.

My $0.02

Mike

[Wolf sword]

The USA has had 2 ebola outbreaks already. One in Cali and one in Texas, granted this was only in monkeys that had come from the Philippines.
Also they are going to the CDC, I think they will handle this pretty well.

[Targan]

Ebola can be much more safely dealt with in developed countries than in the under-developed parts of Africa where it comes from. It's not much consolation for the 90% of patients who die after contracting Ebola, but the rest of the population can easily be protected by quarantines and containment.

Now, if Ebola mutated in two specific ways, becoming contagious during the incubation phase and becoming easier to transmit coughing/breathing in the resulting aerosol, we could all be in a great deal of trouble.

[kato13]

I would feel better about the work of the CDC on this if they didn't have 3 serious breaches of containment discovered in the past three months. Most seriously in my opinion being the discovery of "misplaced" small pox samples from decades ago. Given we were repeatedly given 100% assurances that the only remaining virus were in well protected labs. (The fact that the samples were almost assuredly nonviable makes me feel a little better but does not excuse it)

I agree that having the US take care of its sick citizens is comparable to having a ballerina who was raised in a acrobat family carry your coffee (the highest dexterity you can imagine). However safe it probably is, a spill is still possible. We have all rolled 00 at some point in our lives.

edit: I guess the small pox was viable
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/11/health/smallpox-found-nih-alive/

[stormlion1]

They should be brought to a place where it can be contained not a populated city like Atlanta. The CDC has an island for things like this off New York! I fully believe it will be something like this that will be the doom of mankind.

[bobcat]

all things considered i'm fairly sure the boys with their plastic beakers aren't going to be dumb enough to allow anyone in contact with the patients without proper protective gear. not to mention most modern hospitals have their own quarantine wards and CBRN rated air filters on all ducting. heck even my backwater town hospital has all that. so if there was a major outbreak in the US i doubt it would start in Georgia.(please don't ask me to explain my exact reasoning. if the other team hasn't thought of it i don't want to give them ideas.)

[kato13]

so if there was a major outbreak in the US i doubt it would start in Georgia.

Until your post got me thinking I had forgotten that Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (serving Atlanta) is the busiest airport in the World (We in Chicago are in denial about that). I truly think the chances of an outbreak are miniscule, but that is another reason to possibly question if Atlanta is the best place for this.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

And of course now that it's known we have a "cure" (really a sort of "Well...maybe this'll work" experiment we did on the two US doctors), how many infected people will be trying to sneak into the US because "they've got a cure!"

:/

[stormlion1]

Actually Ebola has escaped much stricter conditions than the CDC in Atlanta in the past. Back about thirty years ago a researcher in the British Chemical Warfare labs somehow got himself infected and they had about as stringent safety protocols or better as the CDC probably has.

[mikeo80]

At this moment, I have raised my personal alert status from green to yellow. I am not at "OH S***"...yet.

Made sure that water supply is in good rotation mode, food supplies properly stored and ready, keeping cars as full of gas as possible, more ammo brought from storage to ready. Plastic sheets and duct tape ready.

Maybe I am over re-acting....

Rather safe than sorry.

My $0.02

Mike

[.45cultist]

In the 1990's epidemiologists thought Ebola might be the disease they have a name for-"Slate Wiper". The original mutates millions of times every 24 hours. The original is probably safer than the weaponized samples Russia has. Developed countries transportation networks make it scary, isolation of the sick is Africa's chief defense.

[stormlion1]

Isolation is the only real way to contain it. Not bring it to labs on separate continents. I fully expect this to get out somehow and cause an issue somewhere in the world. Its almost inevitable with airlines and people being people.

[kato13]

I remember from the non-fiction book "The Hot Zone" that two of the pioneering researchers accidentally inhaled Ebola Reston during the early phases of the investigation. (It smelled like grape juice if i recall correctly)

Rather than remove themselves from their research (or even tell anyone), they continued to work. They depended on the fact that they were working in isolation suits to protect their coworkers. With frequent testing of their blood after a time they were confident they were not infected.

In the end, they were fine and the research went on unimpeded by the exposure, but is shows how human nature can make smart people violate protocols if they think they either know better or that they have a handle on it.

[.45cultist]

Airports were what I looked at for my Marburg Z frame work. Fast travel is the chief hazard for pandemics.

[Schone23666]

In the 1990's epidemiologists thought Ebola might be the disease they have a name for-"Slate Wiper". The original mutates millions of times every 24 hours. The original is probably safer than the weaponized samples Russia has. Developed countries transportation networks make it scary, isolation of the sick is Africa's chief defense.

I'd read in Ken Alibek's "Biohazard" (highly recommended and scary as hell if you haven't read it yet) that the Biopreparat (Soviet secret biological weapons program for those who don't know) was experimenting with different strains of Ebola in an attempt to weaponize it, supposedly one nasty cocktail they came up with was Ebopox, basically a combination of Ebola and smallpox.

[.45cultist]

I'd read in Ken Alibek's "Biohazard" (highly recommended and scary as hell if you haven't read it yet) that the Biopreparat (Soviet secret biological weapons program for those who don't know) was experimenting with different strains of Ebola in an attempt to weaponize it, supposedly one nasty cocktail they came up with was Ebopox, basically a combination of Ebola and smallpox.

It was that agencie's work with Marburg and Ebola that inspired my disease. That book went into the fact they preferred to play with incurable, no vaccine biohazards. I could see new interest in Ebola if Russia could inoculate thier soldiers.

[Schone23666]

Well, the situation in West Africa is getting no better. Bodies are being dumped in the streets now, where all that Ebola-tainted bodily fluids can seep around on streets and into groundwater, sewage systems, etc. And the infrastructure in these parts of the world aren't the cleanest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/05/us-health-ebola-africa-idUSKBN0G51VF20140805

And now this just in....they're testing a patient who traveled to West Africa for possible exposure to Ebola at Mt. Sinai hospital in New York City. A former biomedical coworker of mine works at Bronx Hospital Center not far from it. They're saying the possibility that said patient has Ebola is "unlikely".

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/health/patient-at-mount-sinai-has-ebola-like-symptoms-hospital-says.html?_r=0

Yeah, maybe, but I'm not banking on that until the test results come out. Yes, I know, most modern hospitals these days have special isolation rooms, air-scrubbing filters and strict infection-control procedures (I work in one myself), but...New York City?! Talk about ground zero, sheesh.


It was that agencie's work with Marburg and Ebola that inspired my disease. That book went into the fact they preferred to play with incurable, no vaccine biohazards. I could see new interest in Ebola if Russia could inoculate thier soldiers.

Well, to quote Ken Alibek "The most effective bioweapons are those for which there is no vaccine, no cure." Simple, true, yet scary as f**k.

[.45cultist]

Well, the situation in West Africa is getting no better. Bodies are being dumped in the streets now, where all that Ebola-tainted bodily fluids can seep around on streets and into groundwater, sewage systems, etc. And the infrastructure in these parts of the world aren't the cleanest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/05/us-health-ebola-africa-idUSKBN0G51VF20140805

And now this just in....they're testing a patient who traveled to West Africa for possible exposure to Ebola at Mt. Sinai hospital in New York City. A former biomedical coworker of mine works at Bronx Hospital Center not far from it. They're saying the possibility that said patient has Ebola is "unlikely".

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/health/patient-at-mount-sinai-has-ebola-like-symptoms-hospital-says.html?_r=0

Yeah, maybe, but I'm not banking on that until the test results come out. Yes, I know, most modern hospitals these days have special isolation rooms, air-scrubbing filters and strict infection-control procedures (I work in one myself), but...New York City?! Talk about ground zero, sheesh.




Well, to quote Ken Alibek "The most effective bioweapons are those for which there is no vaccine, no cure." Simple, true, yet scary as f**k.

Modern hospitals are fighting Staph and a host of other resistant organisms.

[stormlion1]

Look at it this way, the Black Plague killed how many? Ebola if it gets free in clear in a heavily populated first world city with a major airport could easily eclipse the Black Plagues death toll. And the CDC is located in Atlanta with one of the biggest airports in the country. Just one person, at the wrong place and wrong time and with the ability to be a Typhoid Mary could doom us all. As for Africa in the areas were its really impacting there is only one real choice. March everyone out and separate them into groups and then let those infected die. Push the bodys back into the towns were they came from and light the place on fire. Preferably with napalm. For something like this, humanitarian issues need to be put aside.

[kato13]

That might be a bit of an overreaction at this point, but my concerns are certainly raised.

This strain seems to have moved closer to the slate wiper strain than any prior one. Years ago I felt that 5 or 6 mutations would be necessary for a truly scary Ebola to emerge. I think this one has certainly moved forward in 2 of them.

It has shown
Longer incubation
Greater ease is infection beyond blood-borne

This one might be able to survive in an aerosol longer than prior strains, but I am not ready to concede that it is airborne. There still seems to be a need for contact with fluid generated outside of the respiratory system.

If the strain does go airborne where someone can infect anther via exhaling and it is found new infections can occur when a patient is asymptomatic, I could see some pretty draconian measures being pulled out.

[Targan]

Look at it this way, the Black Plague killed how many? Ebola if it gets free in clear in a heavily populated first world city with a major airport could easily eclipse the Black Plagues death toll. And the CDC is located in Atlanta with one of the biggest airports in the country. Just one person, at the wrong place and wrong time and with the ability to be a Typhoid Mary could doom us all. As for Africa in the areas were its really impacting there is only one real choice. March everyone out and separate them into groups and then let those infected die. Push the bodys back into the towns were they came from and light the place on fire. Preferably with napalm. For something like this, humanitarian issues need to be put aside.

Not a particularly strong comparison. The plague is really easy to treat with modern antibiotics.

I'd be having a bit of a laugh and maybe having a gentle dig at members here talking about a potential outbreak of Ebola in the US, but I haven't because I understand why some might be concerned about the risks and I won't make light of genuinely held fears. I'll just say that of all the potential pandemic pathogens, Ebola isn't that high on the list and I'm sure you'll all be safe. Aside from Ebola's own limitations in becoming pandemic, the USA has some of the finest facilities and specialists in the world for dealing with these sorts of things. Trust your experts, they know what they're doing.

[Cdnwolf]

Not a particularly strong comparison. The plague is really easy to treat with modern antibiotics.

I'd be having a bit of a laugh and maybe having a gentle dig at members here talking about a potential outbreak of Ebola in the US, but I haven't because I understand why some might be concerned about the risks and I won't make light of genuinely held fears. I'll just say that of all the potential pandemic pathogens, Ebola isn't that high on the list and I'm sure you'll all be safe. Aside from Ebola's own limitations in becoming pandemic, the USA has some of the finest facilities and specialists in the world for dealing with these sorts of things. Trust your experts, they know what they're doing.

I was in Toronto during the SARS outbreak... it showed how easy it was for something to spread quickly even in a Modern city with top facilities.

[.45cultist]

In game terms pandemics, zombies are nice apolitical TEOTWAWKI, all are vulnerable regardless of views.

[Cdnwolf]

It has spread to Saudi Arabia now...

(CNN) —A nurse in Nigeria. A businessman in Saudi Arabia. A Spanish priest in Liberia.

With the World Health Organization announcing Wednesday that 932 deaths had been reported or confirmed as a result of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Saudi Arabia joined the list of countries with suspected cases.

[stormlion1]

"Trust your experts they know what there doing" rates as high as "Were with the government and were here to help you." While not a huge threat Ebola if it gets loose can cause damage on par with the Black Plague, sure there two different disease's but at this time were in the same boat as the people of the Middle Ages were. Large populations and no way to effectively treat the disease. People are people and someone will always try to get out rather than stay and seek medical attention. And that's how something like this will spread.

[Schone23666]

Looks like someone in D.C. is taking this seriously, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has issued their highest alert of 1 and a "all hands on deck" for this one:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/cdc-raises-response-highest-alert-amid-ebola-outbreak-n174496

[Cdnwolf]

Canada has already put measures in place.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadas-ebola-outbreak-prep-led-090000565.html

[Cdnwolf]

Police and soldiers in Sierra Leone blockaded rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus on Thursday, a senior officer said, after neighbouring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which has killed 932 people.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced emergency measures late on Wednesday that will, for 90 days, allow her government to curtail civil rights by imposing quarantines on badly affected communities to contain an epidemic that has struck four West African nations.

[Cdnwolf]

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/08/08/brampton_civic_hospitals_patient_sparks_ebola_worr ies.html

Hope it is nothing...

[Targan]

Still a long way to go before it causes as much trouble as the post-Great War Spanish flu pandemic did.

[Cdnwolf]

Still a long way to go before it causes as much trouble as the post-Great War Spanish flu pandemic did.

They didn't have modern air travel back then either.

[pmulcahy11b]

They didn't have modern air travel back then either.

The time it took to spread worldwide back then -- I heard a truism once, "With modern air travel, a disease could be anywhere in the world in 24 hours." Almost true, unfortunately.