This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
WHO Warns "No End In Sight" As 170 Ebola Healthcare Workers Now Infected
"The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa continues to evolve in alarming ways, with no immediate end in sight," is the ominous warning this morning from the World Health Organization. The WHO statement confirmed that a stunning 170 health-care workers (the ones covered from head to toe in protective garments) have been infected with Ebola and at least 81 have died. "Treatment facilities are oveflowing," they note as they prepare to hold an emergency meeting today on experimental therapies. But apart from that, as Western media says, it is contained and does not pose a risk to Americans...
The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa continues to evolve in alarming ways, with no immediate end in sight. Many barriers stand in the way of rapid containment.
The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, have only recently returned to political stability following years of civil war and conflict, which left health systems largely destroyed or severely disabled.
...
The recent surge in the number of cases has stretched all capacities to the breaking point. Supplies of personal protective equipment and disinfectants are inadequate. The outbreak continues to outstrip diagnostic capacity, delaying the confirmation or exclusion of cases and impeding contact tracing.
Some treatment facilities are overflowing; all beds are occupied and patients are being turned away.
...
Six months into the outbreak, fear is proving to be the most difficult barrier to overcome. Fear causes contacts of cases to escape from the surveillance system, families to hide symptomatic loved ones or take them to traditional healers, and patients to flee treatment centres. Fear, and the hostility it can feed, have threatened the security of national and international response teams.
Health-care staff fear for their lives. To date, more than 170 health-care workers have been infected and at least 81 have died.
Outbreak control is further compromised when fear causes airlines to refuse to transport personal protective equipment and courier services to refuse to transport properly and securely packaged patient samples to a WHO-approved laboratory.
...
On Monday 11 August, WHO will hold an emergency meeting with ethicists, drug regulators, scientific experts and lay people to assess the role of experimental therapies in the Ebola outbreak response. Issues to be considered include the extent of available scientific data on efficacy and safety, principles for guiding access to these therapies, principles for fair distribution, and possibilities for rapid augmentation of supplies and their distribution.
* * *
Bloomberg rounds up the latest news on the Ebola outbreak...
- Latest WHO death toll: 961
- Nigeria says 8 people being treated for Ebola
- Rwanda Health Ministry tests suspected Ebola case
- Romania treats patient suspected of Ebola infection: Mediafax
- GSK to test Ebola vaccine later this year: Guardian
- Ebola outbreak shows why global health system is broken: Bloomberg Businessweek
- Yahoo News’s Twitter feed hacked, looking into false tweet about outbreak in Atlanta: USA Today
»
- 33127 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Good thing it's not contagious...
Even the CDC added a footnote on their website about the airborne nature of the contagion.
There is no parental supervision.
We are in a real a mad house run by the crazies.
PS Come to think about it, given the way we procreate with abandon, waste resources, treat one another and live in such unsanitary conditions (world wide) why would anybody wonder why shit like this hasn't just plain wiped humans off the globe by now? Mother Earth is gonna be here a long time after man is gone, with a whole lotta stuff still having a ball.
< Ebola will remain in Africa
< Ebola will spread to other continents (over 1,000 domestic transmissions)
Coming soon to a bushmeat vendor near you.
"Monkey brains, fresh hot monkey brains..."
An "Organ Grinder's" Wet Dream
that's fucked even by my standards
Anyone notice how the death toll has not changed since Friday?
Africans have difficulty counting over 1,000
It becomes a challenge for their leaders to cut that many fingers off their citizens...
Obama should put on his old Candy Striper uniform and go to an African Ebola clinic as a show of support
For what it's worth...
(Which incidentally is currently around $140 million for Tekmira and Monsanto... yup... THAT Monsanto...)
"Another press release about Tekmira reveals a $140 million contract with the U.S. military for Ebola treatment drugs:
TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola virus RNAi therapeutic, is being developed under a $140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense's Medical Countermeasure Systems BioDefense Therapeutics (MCS-BDTX) Joint Product Management Office.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046259_ebola_outbreak_drug_treatments_monsanto.html#ixzz3A6nFhnDK"Tekmira's anti-Ebola drug, TKM-Ebola, was in Phase I clinical trials. That only finds out if the drug is safe to give to healthy, uninfected humans. Phase I does not reveal if the drug works at all in humans, it just establishes that they won't have serious side effects or die from taking it. There were some reactions and the trial was put on hold last month. This is not the experimental drug given to the two Americans now in Atlanta - that was a different one called zMAPP.
In non-humans, TKM-Ebola seems to prevent the Zaire ebola stratin (EBOV) if given before infection. If given within a couple of days of infection, fewer animals ultimately died. If given after a few days, it doesn't do much good.
What's interesting about Tekmira's drug is where it was being tested a few months ago: Sierra Leone's Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Diagnostic Laboratory and Treatment Facility. Tulane and USAMRIID have also been working on some kind of ebola test kit at the facility. The hospital also houses one of the U.S.'s Level 2 bioweapons surveillance labs.
Lassa virus (LASV) is another hemmoragic fever in West Africa, somewhat less lethal than ebola. The bioweapons guys love this one because of its viral shipping container. That container allows it to travel through the air into your resperatory system and find its way to a cell. It attaches to the cell and injects its virus payload inside the cell. EBOV doesn't travel well because its container is more fragile. You usually need direct contact with body fluids.
So the Army bioweapons pinheads in Maryland figure, "Hey, let's see if we can stuff an EBOV payload into a LASV container. Airborne ebola!" And it looks like they were successful in creating some kind of hybrid LASV/EBOV Frankenvirus. Research work at the Kenema Hospital either intentionally or accidentally infected some of the LASV patients being treated there. Maybe the TKM-Ebola serum was secretly tested on the facilities' Lassa patients and just mutated. We'll never know becaue the head doctor and nurses got infected and Sierra Leone government shut down the facility.
Frankenvirus spreads as easily as Lassa Fever, but it was really ebola. The mutated form only kills 40% of its victims as opposed to Zaire Ebola's 75% mortality rate. That must have pissed off the bioweapons guys.
Distractions always help when covering up disasters like this, so plain old Zaire Ebola was introduced in Liberia and Guinea about the same time the Sierra Leone outbreak was 'discovered'. Sure enough, mortality rates were around 75% in the first two countries, while Sierra Leone's LASV/EBOV Frankenvirus mortality was closer to 40%. The Zaire strain in Liberia and Guinea will eventually die out. Frankenvirus is the one that's going to spread everywhere.
It also takes longer for the Frankenvirus to incubate: 9 - 21 days vs. 5 - 9 days for Zaire ebola. That means it takes longer before you become infectious, but you are infectious for a longer period of time before you show symptoms. Since this is airborne, you're more likely to contaminate a lot of other people before you realize you're sick or vice versa. Even worse, theraputic drugs like zMAPP will not be taken in time because you won't get sick for over a week after being infected - that's too late to take it for it to work.
Expect either
Paveway, Plausible. Here' a couple links as to the spreading of this (Vet. Study). First is summary, second is Full Version.
Pathology of Experimental Aerosol Zaire Ebolavirus Infection in Rhesus Macaques
http://vet.sagepub.com/content/50/3/514
http://vet.sagepub.com/content/50/3/514.full
Three obstacles to that theory:
1) No one engineered an evil marriage of Ebola and Lassa in a BSL2 facility. (That would be like saying someone could go to their nearest Home Depot and get the necessary parts and build a fission bomb at their kitchen table. Home Depot can, however, sell you everything you need to build a BSL2 facility).
2) If there was an evil marriage of ebola and lassa, then out of the 2000 people who have tested positive for ebola, there would be a significant number of (unreported) positive test results for both EHV and LASV, so the entire infectious disease community would have to be in on the conspiracy.
(some light reading and divergent opinions about what is known)
http://currents.plos.org/outbreaks/article/phylogenetic-analysis-of-guin...
http://currents.plos.org/outbreaks/article/clock-rooting-further-demonst...
3) This already is known: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/20/7/13-1265_article
So, in an odd way ebola has already been proven to be hiding in lassa... (that paper is worth reading, very carefully)
"...No one engineered an evil marriage of Ebola and Lassa in a BSL2 facility..."
I didn't mean to give that impression - it's coincidental (but convenient) that USAMRIID and the Level 2 lab for global surveillance are also in that same hospital. There has been years of Tulane/USAMRIID development of a Lassa diagnostic assay and more recently for an ebola assay. I assume is somehow related to the global surveillance program's lab. There's just an awful lot going on at Kenema. I understand why (endemic Lassa, etc.), but that doesn't explain how this facility seems to be the possible source for the Sierra Leone outbreak. I know some people are labeling the surveillance lab a 'bioweapon level 2 facility' whatever that is - I'm not.
They would have 'engineered it' either in Ft. Detrick, Maryland or one of their other contract death labs in a Level 4 facility. There are other private companies playing around with this technology for .gov, too.
"...If there was an evil marriage of ebola and lassa, then out of the 2000 people who have tested positive for ebola, there would be a significant number of (unreported) positive test results for both EHV and LASV..."
Would they? My primate-level of understanding is that only a structural component (not the entire viral encoding) for Lassa is somehow used. Since no Lassa fragment is injected into the host cell, there is no recognition or response to it at the cellular level. In any case, part of the drama surrounding the Kenema Hospital is that they were somehow duping 'test' subjects and/or falsifying test results. Maybe all the Sierra Leone cases were positive for both. That's hardly anything I would want to advertise to the rest of the infectious disease community if anyone knew I was working on a Frankenvirus bioweapon version of the two.
The Guniea and Liberia victims were exposed to the same Guniea version of Zaire ebola strain, but without the Lassa HF involved. You have to admit that someting is odd about the reported mortality rates of Sierra Leone vs. Guniea and Liberia even though they are all supposedly the same Guinea Outbreak Zaire ebola EBOV strain.
Regarding 3) - unless I'm missing something, I understand that only around a third of the tests submitted for patients with acute fever suspected of having Lassa in 2006-08 showed Lassa antibodies. For the remaining two-thirds - the Lassa-negatives - 25% have antibodies associated with the acute phases of other diseases: certain alphaviruses or certain ebola viruses.
The only ebola strain antibodies they expected to find was the only ebola ever isolated in West Africa, TANF. Instead, the Lassa-negative, ebola-positive patients were, with one exception, showing exposure to EBOV (only associated with Central Africa as far as anyone knew).
So EBOV was endemic to West Africa all along and some people being tested for Lassa actually had Zaire ebola, even though no outbreaks nor even a confirmed case had ever been identified in West Africa back in 2006-08 or even since then - present outbreak excluded.
So something happened a few months ago - mutation, weaponization, maybe just some environmental stuff - that resulted in EBOV becoming more virulent to epedemic proportions.
Viral engineering is well beyond my area of expertise too, but from an industrial engineering standpoint there is a significant complexitiy to an argument for recent engineering that remains unaccounted for.
We now know that 8-15 years ago (around the end or after the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone cooled) EBOV came to West Africa, found a host(s), and there are now reservoirs of EBOV in West Africa.
We can estimate there are 75,000-100,000 hospitalizations per year in West Africa for acute LASV (leading to the official estimate of @5,000 deaths per year).
So if we take Schoepp et al's 60-70% "acute diseases of unknown origin", we can extrapolate there are perhaps another 100,000 hospitalizations per year where 8.6% of, or 8,600 patients, would test positive for EBOV antibodies.
So absent any recent release of some new engineered ebola-monster there should be lots (thousands) of annual cases of EBOV in West Africa being fed from the existing strain/reservoir.
Where are these thousands of ebola infections we should be seeing from the existing strain and reservoirs (now that everyone is looking and paying attention), if the infections that we are seeing currently in West Africa are the result of an engineered virus? It is unfortunate that NIH has only the three sequences, because if there is recent engineering- there should be clear distinctions apparent in a larger sample set.
boattrash: I understood that Zaire ebola is transmitted by bodily fluids, but was not generally thought to have much success in airborne (or aerosolized fluid) transmittal. Spraying a monkey's face with aerosolized ebola proves it's possible to transmit it this way, but everyone so far has not seemed too concerned about that possibility.
To the contrary, most public health people keep saying Zaire ebola can't be transmitted through the air easily (or at all) so nothing to worry about - just don't let ebola victims cough on you. This isn't backed up by the experience of a number of knoledgeable health care workers in well-equipped facilities that have contracted the disease despite proper isolation and presonal protection practices around infectious diseases. There is nothing a Lassa patient care health worker isn't already doing that puts them at risk of ebola infection - yet a lot of the Kenama staff were still infected.
Hey! that Candy Striper uniform is for his boy friend's, excuse me wife's eyes only.
Yea I noticed that, they are hiding alot of information about this disease and what it's doing.
If properly cooked they're probably fine.
Are you offering your services as a food taster ?
doctor Thomas Levy... a simple and cheap treatment based on intravenous vitamin c can kill the ebola virus ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpptUsJFCEY ...
Electron flow theory of disease and health.
Health is an state of high electron flow and disease is an state of low electron flow.
Vitamin c is the premier anti-oxidant for the body as it donates electrons
Anti-oxidants supply electrons,
pro-oxidants (free radicals) receive and takeaway electrons
Infections are virtually all pro-oxidants strong promoters of oxidation.
Patients with infections show increased levels of oxidative stress, pro-oxidants, free radicals and decreased levels of anti-oxidants as they are consumed or metabolized.
When the infection is severe the body has a massive consumption of anti-oxidants
and patients can often get the clinical syndrome of scurvy and its primarily reaction hemorrhage ...
Here's an interesting fact. A person has a Vitamin C tolerance, called your bowel tolerance (self-explantory, I imagine).
Now, when you are sick, your Vitamin C tolerance INCREASES. Its like your body is saying: MOAR.
This is very true, and a great video. I use regular vitamin C suppliments, about 1000mg a day for me. When I feel like I maybe getting a tickle in my throat or run down, I up it to about 4000mg for a couple of days. So far this has kept me well without gettting a cold for about 3 years now. I also take a bunch of other vitamin's and minerals. Fresh Garlic is a major anti-bacterial as well as anti viral properties.
Vitamin C in large volume is a blood thinner.
You will bleed out quicker from the ebola.
Take the Vitamin C as a PRECAUTION. PREVENTATIVE measure.
If you gots the fullblown Ebola, say your prayers.
Per dr Levy, like in the clinical syndrome of scurvy ...
hemorrhage is a reaction due to low levels of vitamin c
by stopping the bleed out hemorrhage - the death toll will be reduced to zero
There is only one true class of drug and/or supplement.
Anti biotics.Every other one has different effects at different dosages.
I take vitamin E as a blood thinner, instead of medication per se, but I still have my
haemocrit checked monthly.
Just because something is natural doesn't make it harmless,plenty of poisons occur naturally.
Be careful.
Comparing an Ebola infection to scurvy is really a disservice. Ebola does not cause a vitamin C deficiency. Its a free country and you are free to eat as many vitamins as you choose, but it will absolutely not help.
When patients develop appendicitis, the appendix becomes inflamed and needs to be removed. If the surgeon opens the patient up, the appendix is friable (leaky) and will easily just fall apart, spreading infection. The inflamed appendix is not caused by a vitamin C deficiency, and giving no amount of vitamin C will stabilize the patient. The surgeon usually gives a few doses of ampiicillin, gentamicin and metronidazole first to kill off the causative organisms, then removes the diseased tissue.
Per Dr. Levy
Patients with infections show increased levels of oxidative stress, pro-oxidants, free radicals
and decreased levels of anti-oxidants (vitamin c) as they are consumed or metabolized.
When the infection is severe the body has a massive consumption of anti-oxidants (vitamin c)
and patients can often get the clinical syndrome of scurvy and its primarily reaction hemorrhage
So based in your studies or reasearch can you tell us
what is the reason for the hemorrhage in patients with
scurvy, ebola or west nile viruses ?
i dont take any supplements and have not had a cold for 5 years ?
can you still look at you in the mirror when since 1976 army manipulate this shit to make most dangerous virus ever discovered, and this virus could be simply kiiled with vitamin C IV...?
ARE YOU SUCH A MOTHER FUCKIN FUCK MORRON ?
or is it that you are just another paid troll ?
Meet Dr. Thomas Levy
Dr. Levy received his Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from the Johns Hopkins University
in 1972. He later graduated from the Tulane University School of Medicine in 1976.
Continuing his training at Tulane, he specialized first in internal medicine and then in
cardiology, receiving board certification in both of these disciplines. After completing his
postgraduate training, Dr. Levy served as an assistant professor of medicine at Tulane
Medical School for another three years. After a private practice of adult cardiology, Dr.
Levy started his research on the medical impact of dental toxicity with Dr. Hal Huggins in
1994. In 1998, he received his law degree from the University of Denver and was
subsequently admitted to practice law in Colorado and the District of Columbia.
Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins is Dr. Levy's fourth book.
A Bachelor of Arts in Biology.
The BA in Biology offers a broad, modern, and rigorous program:Students take a series of advanced electives, including a capstone course in Comparative Physiology (BIOL 255). Because Biology is such a broad discipline, many students choose to concentrate in one area, and others prefer to remain generalists...
http://www.bio.jhu.edu/Undergrad/BAProgram.aspx
Here's how you know Dr. Levy is a snake-oil merchant, regardless of whether morphine or vitamin c will help with ebola...
The words/characterization: "simple" and "cheap" treatment based on "intravenous" [anything]
Ask yourself this:
How competent are you to practice real medicine?
Doctors have been performing cesarean sections since before Cesar (could you perform a c-section?).
Doctors have been doing intravenous fluids in the field since about the time they invented the atom bomb (IV fluids are not quite rocket science, but they are also not something you are going to be able to do safely from a book with no lab experience)
If either the solution you make, or the equipment you use is not STERILE, all that vitamin C will work wonderfully for delivering an infection straight to your brain and bypassing all your bodies normal defenses against such an infection.
(It really would be both simpler and safer to just shove all that vitamin c up your ass.)
'Coming soon to a bushmeat vendor near you."
http://www.exoticmeatmarkets.com/
Venison, Wascally Wabbit, Daffy Duck, Boar, Bison (before it was extincted and resurrected three days later), Elk, Caribou, Bullwinkle (& Rocky), Beaver, the list goes on and on...
North American bush meat also sometimes gives one of those gifts that keeps on giving if untreated - Brucellosis (aka Crimean Fever, not to be confused with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, but sometimes it is)
Speaking of which, anyone seen Meattrapper recently, or is there an ebola outbreak at ZH?
Chinese are getting quarentined now in Sierra Leone:
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/more-world-stories/story/eight-chinese-quarantined-ebola-hit-sierra-leone-20140812
I got a fever and I'm bleeding from my ass. Doc says the only prescription is more cowbell.
Just lay off the habanero peppers next time.
That aint gonna do it if yer still bendin over for him.
if i was the medic i would say something more like :
" gratz, you are now , a woman. "
I just wanted to thank you for your comments on the ebola threads. Even though we face something that could possibly wipe out 20-50% of the world's population, your wit has brought humor to even the darkest of situations. If I ever come down with this nasty ass shit, the only levity I will have, as I bleed out of every orifice, is saying "eeeebbbbooolllaaaa". My friends and family will, of course, think that I've been driven mad by fever, but I will know I atleast have a sense of humor.
While you're waiting for more cowbell, just bend over, keep your ass up in the air, and give Obama a call. Or give Hitlery a call if you prefer a strap-on.
Yes, that tweet from Atlanta was a mistake... Move along...
"fear causes airlines to refuse to transport personal protective equipment "
Sure sounds like Africa is toast. Bloody toast.
A lot of people there are taking Bitter Kola nut as a precaution. I would sooner do that than take an experimental vaccine.
Note the Bitter Kola is a preventative, not a cure.
There is no experimental vaccine. There is only serum, and that only in tiny supply.
I don't know about the Bitter Kola thing, sounds like a sick joke. But people should do whatever they think is right even if all it does is give hope.
Africa is going to burn. This is going to be horrible.
Its not a sick joke. Its a locally available preventative measure, as Bitter Kola is high in ascorbic acid (and other vitamins & minerals).
For people who DON'T YET have Ebola! The principle is easy enough to understand. Once you are infected, the virus must mulitply. If you are able to slow its multiplication efforts, you live longer, and your body has a chance to kill the virus off.
You don't have to tell me how it works. I've already forgotten more about "how it works" than you will probably ever know.
Nutrition is not going to fight this thing. Not for a second will it fight. If your body is strong and well-nourished to survive a destroying pathogen then maybe your body will fight it off, and having a strong immune system (and good supportive care) will be part of that. But that is all that will matter.
I eat a Sarcastic Koala every day and I haven't gotten infected yet. See it works!
From Wikipedia:
Garcinia kola has been used for centuries to treat chest colds in traditional medicine, but research has taken a look and found out why it is effective. A study in the 2008 issue of The Internet Journal of Pulmonary Medicine, performed on mice, reports that garcinia kola improved respiratory function after 28 days of use of a garcinia extract. Written by David A. Ofusori, MSc, from Igbinedion University in Nigeria, the study shows that garcinia kola works by dilating the alveolar ducts and sacs in the lungs by improving the strength of the fibers in the lung tissue. Garcinia kola's beneficial lung properties are attributed to its high antioxidant content.
Archived BBC article from 1999 about "possible ebola cure"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/411030.stm
This is called "treating the symptoms" and even western medicine comes down to the same thing -- and little more -- much of the time.
There are very few treatments for the spread of a virus in the body. Almost none, I would have to say. The only thing that works is to take blood serum from survivors and inject that into patients, in which case the naturally acquired immunity is what does the trick. But how much serum can you take from how many survivors? It doesn't scale at all but you can treat a few people that way.
The work being done extracting serum-like treatments with plants is interesting. If that has a future then they might finally get ahead of this. But it's highly experimental yet and I don't know how well it scales up either. It might remain a solution for western governments to treat their high-value clients.
No way out of this folks. Stay away from it is your best bet. Period.
How much serum can you take...? Well, all of it. Just like on "Night of the Comet". Ahhh. Excuse me now while I go fantasize about Mary Catherine Stewart with a Mac 10.
So a liter of serum from an Ebola survivor will become a hot item on eBay?
Is it a huge dosage of Vit C? What's the agent in the nut that's supposedly preventing Ebola?
Do not touch the toast.
"There is no risk that Ebola is airborne."
-Timmy "Turbo Tax" Geithner
"But just in case, if you use the bathroom on an airplane after someone w/ Ebola-like symptoms, wash your hands twice, and avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Or face. Avoid touching anything"
Just as an extra precaution, simply relieve yourself where you sit.
On any African airline, that would not seem too awfully out of the ordinary
If it's airborne and you are stuck on a plane with ebola in the seat three rows down, none of those precautions will matter. Not even a little.
Dont worry - the miracle serum created by some scientist/doctor like B.Pitt or D.Hoffman or maybe W.Smith will come around - when their is 500 million of us left.
.
In the meantime, ill see you guys at the FEMA camps for coffee and tea when we are culled together.
.
Executive Order 13295.
Executive Order 13295 was amended on July 31, 2014. Subsection (b) was replaced with the following:
"(b) Severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled. This subsection does not apply to influenza.
Get your doctor's notes ready!
"I've got the flu. No, no, not Ebola. Its the flu, not Ebola, I promise!"
SARS
Yeah they might try and apply it to ebola after-the-fact. But honestly, they don't need a legal framework at hand if they want to shut down the country and move sick people into tents out in the middle of the desert. They'll just do what they like and if anyone doesn't like it they'll toss them in prison until the whole thing blows over, no trial no nothing.
You're delusional, once the heat runs out in Mercury, it's off to the races for more heat.
CNBS will show 2 dogs humping if it'll spark the market.
Don't think they'll report on this cuz it's bearish (which is bullish, everything is bullish)
Simon and Steve?
or Steve and Chris?
.
http://www.cbc.ca/stevenandchris/
My testosterone levels dropped as a result of clicking your link. You will pay for this, Blotto!
GeeWhizz
Supposedly not airborne??? Read The Hot Zone. It was inconclusive if the various strains could be infectious through the air. The Reston strain appeared to be so in monkeys. Also only takes 5 or 6 virus particles to infect. Don't tell me a few don't take a sneezed up water droplet through the air and land on an exposed spot. It has been shown that the virus can live in water for a bit.
How else are these workers getting infected? Not taking the necessary precautions? Like full body positive pressure suits?
The medical journals clearly stated that the Reston strain was infectious in aerosol form. As have been just about every single virus of this nature. This whole thing about "it ain't this time" is just pure rubbish. Either meant to allay fears or just let everybody get infected. Cloward Piven. What's your guess?
No I really don't care about motivations or incompetence anymore. It is what it is and bloody deadly and highly contagious.
Period.
Pass the Jello.
.
I don't get paid enough to think, but from what I've read the Reston strain is VERY similar looking to the Zaire (the really bad one) strain. Through the air, Reston killed monkeys. It didn't kill humans at the time. If Reston is similar to Zaire, and Reston CAN be transmitted through the air, why can't the Zaire strain supposedly not?
What if they've morphed/evolved a bit too?
I'm no expert for sure. Just seems like this stuff is a bit on the contagious side, one way or another.
Sort of depends on your definition of "very" similar. The only flying/airborne mammal I am familiar with is a bat (which can also be immune to ebola) and would fall in 90% similar to human ballpark.
Tracing Similarities And Differences In Our DNA
What percent of their genes match yours?
Another human? 100% - All humans have the same genes, but some of these genes contain sequence differences that make each person unique.
A chimpanzee? 98% - Chimpanzees are the closest living species to humans.
A mouse? 92% - All mammals are quite similar genetically.
A fruit fly? 44% - Studies of fruit flies have shown how shared genes govern the growth and structure of both insects and mammals.
Yeast? 26% - Yeasts are single-celled organisms, but they have many housekeeping genes that are the same as the genes in humans, such as those that enable energy to be derived from the breakdown of sugars.
A weed (thale cress)? 18% - Plants have many metabolic differences from humans. For example, they use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide gas to sugars. But they also have similarities in their housekeeping
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/sites/all/exhibits/exhibitdna/int...
Leftist magazine: Ebola scare a right-wing plot, deadly furniture (!) is the real health threat:
http://tinyurl.com/q9gdqa6
The 961 dead number is from August 6th from data through the 4th (I think). WHO has 1013/1848 dead/cases up today using data up to August 9th. The overall totals are getting older and harder to find it seems.
every doctor you lose, means an extra 100 deaths per year from other causes.
lsoe enough doctors and the mdeical system will collapse
Whaddaya mean "no end in sight"?
There's a dark at the end of the tunnel and it's coming right for us.
No, that's a light at the end of the tunnel......its a train.
...and confined to a single region/continent...
...any update on the potential case being tested in Hong Kong?
negative
result, not as in no news
So William, you can still lick your girlfriends ears for a while longer, you stud.
so far so good
Not a single ebola test outside of Africa has been reported as testing positive. I just re-checked the google newsfeed and it still stands.
You can either find this fact reassuring, or disturbing, your call.
I don't expect ebola to be found in the wild outside Africa for a little while yet.
Maybe end of this week, more likely next week.
But don't worry, it will happen.
I'm sure it will (or has) happened. I'm not so sure we'll hear about it anywhere close in time to the discovery.
The primary thing government (all levels) wants to do in an emergency is prevent panic. If people panic, they have lost control, and governments are all about control.
Natrally they are not reporting any positive tests. I'm not saying there have been positive tests, only that government won't report them until it is too late.
They'll let people panic eventaully, but only when a panic will help someone extend their power and control.
I think there is a very real difference between 'panic' and a 'Cloward-Piven driven riot for a government response that enables new government control'.
The former is without control and what the collectivists fear.
@cougar_w
There was an article on another thread where they said they were flushing Ebola patient waste products into the sewer in Atlanta. They claimed the sanitation treatment facility processes would kill the disease and not to worry. Comment Mr. Kitten?
Found the link:
http://www.webmd.com/news/20140801/american-ebola-patients-returning-us?...
From the article:
Patients’ bodily waste, including stool, will be flushed into the public sewer system. Ribner said there was no risk of transmission to the general public, because waste management practices will kill any virus that’s flushed into waste water.
“The U.S. public health service has established that that is an effective way of dealing with these viruses,” he said. “Whatever comes out of the public sewer system should not be contagious."
Ebola viruses are not especially hard to kill, he said. “Any standard disinfectant will be more than capable of inactivating Ebola,” he said. “We don’t think there will be any secondary cases as a result of caring for these patients in the U.S.”
“Whatever comes out of the public sewer system should not be contagious."
Let me slightly ammend my previously stated position....
As long as incompetence and sheer stupidity are not engaged in ebola will not spread outside of the African continent. There! It's fixed.
Besides it's not like some bioterrorist fucknut is going to find a way to grab some shit and cultivate this virus right... otherwise DHS and all the other ABC agencies spending tens of billions would be all over this.
Let's hope they use a bucket first and don't skimp on bleach...
A few things in general:
1) When I worked with viral- and bacterial-contaminated wastes in a hospital they were incinerating it on-site. Gloves, robes, masks -- the whole thing. Into a bag and into the burner. That was a while back, could be that these days air quality control won't allow for it. I do not know what they did with the human wastes at the time, but everything was handled very carefully.
2) Ebola is a naked RNA strand with some protein, is probably fragile enough that a quarter mile run through the sewers alone is enough to degrade it. Then the treatment plant would be really abusive.
3) Water treatment tries to settle out all suspended particulates into a sludge. The water coming off is clean enough to use for irrigation, at least. It is usually dumped into rivers or the ocean, not a bad practice really, The sludge usually goes to a landfill. I certainly would not want to play around with sludge but I don't think anyone does, I don't know if it has any economic uses.
4) There have been as bad or worse stuff than ebola going into the sewers all along. People at home have all sorts of horrendous viral loads including HIV and hepatitis. The hospital bacterial waste stream contains things like MRSA which is more common and vastly more dangerous to most folk than ebola. A lot of chemicals go in, of course these tend to kill things and degrade virus, not that anyone should dump their chemicals in the sewer.
On the whole I'd not be too worried about what they are doing, because we're talking about a virus.
The big problem is if ebola ever becomes airborne. They need to be guarding against that 24/7, because if it leaves in the lungs of some hospital worker or family member the jig is up.
Thanks for your reply. I like the balance you seem to strike; realism and concern, without drama and hysteria.
;-)
An unfair question for ZH, but does anyone here think that any western government/media would publicly announce a positive test? I mean, I really don't think their most immediate concern is our individual well being nearly as much as our collective anxieties and how that might effect them. When things get bad sometimes you have to lie, right? I think this should be inscribed on our statue of Liberty rather than the huddled masses crap.
"does anyone here think that any western government/media would publicly announce a positive test?"
Honestly, I do not think they will do so. All the major research hospitals are under NDA with the CDC so you can forget them. All the large regional public hospitals will contact the CDC and local authorities before letting the news leak, so forget them too. Private hospitals would rather die than let on that they have an ebola case anywhere on the property.
We'll get news like that from some tiny local hospital not under heavy-handed Federal CDC controls. And given the source, you are unlikely to learn what they ran into. Once it turns up in smaller hospitals (if it ever does) the ebola apocalypses will have begun and you will be on your own.
Still, you cannot keep secret people bleeding out from every orifice. That WILL leak out.
And the ebola apocalypses will have begun and you will be on your own.
You all know the saying: When it gets serious you have to lie.
Actually it is.
Ebola is in the best environment for exponential growth and yet it has only claimed 1,000. It isn't going anywhere but Africa.
1000 reported.
Lets check TOTAL MORTALITY at the end of the year, and see how many are 'unexplained', or if 'flu' maybe had dramatically increased fatalities.
Africa will see thousand more to be sure. Perhaps eventually even millions.
Europe the Americas or Asia however?
Won't happen,
Very smug aren't you? Whether it spreads around the world simply depends on what mutations it will make. The virus has already changed from the 90% mortality, have to come into direct contact type to a less lethal (50-60%) and transmissible by air droplets or ANY bodily fluid including sweat, hence the NEW phenomenon of health workers becoming infected in large numbers. That includes "experts" trained in the disease and wearing full gear. A few more mutations and it will be NO different from the flu.
But what will it do to the Obamacare cost metrics???
I'll bet that in the fine print of the Obamacare contract Ebola isn't covered. Of course, you can always call the Death Panel and ask for clarification.
Who gives a fuck? It's all unsustainable and doomed. If the apple a day won't work, ur fucked!
Overall, I have to agree.
uh...According to the CDC/WHO the 50-60% mortality versus the 90% mortality is due to supportive measures provided to the patient and not a change in the virus its self.
I.V. electrolite drips, etc.etc.
Well, the CDC has also changed the criteria for infection from direct contact to not being in the same room. They have admitted the virus is transmissible by air droplets. That's not full bore airborne but the virus HAS changed, sorry.
delete double post
Non-sequitur....we were discussing the change as in reqards to the mortality rate.
Sorry...please pay attention.
And the CDC already knew about the transmission by air droplets back in 2012. (published info) so THAT is not due to any recent change either.
Brawndo has electrolyte drips!
I must respectfully differ with their assesstment. Supportive care has officially been driven into a ditch. This thing is out of control. If there is any difference in lethality now it is very clearly a new strain.
Give it a month, they'll change their tune.
Edit: let me also remind readers that "less lethal" is not good news at all. ONe of the things kept ebola locked up in the countryside was that it just killed people almost instantly, dropped them right in their tracks. Maybe family members got it then -- might have killed the entire family -- but nobody lived long enough to travel far on those difficult roads by foot, so it stayed where it was born. By becoming less lethal it can reside in the host longer -- even without symptoms -- and if someone has 2 weeks they can make it to a city. This is very clearly what has happened, classic textbook case. It doesn't even have to be airborne to play this card, all it has to do is wait.
Because the same MSF doctors apparently didn't have the same supportive measures during every previous outbreak when ebola was better contained and MSF were treating a higher percentage of those infected.
BULLSHIT. If the CDC/WHO is saying that they are lying, or professionally incompetent to the point the should be removed from office in the interest of public health.
So assuming ebola is an "important" public health issue, according to Juncker- they must be lyin' their asses off right now.
We have much larger problems to worry about.
Don't forget... health workers are up to their eyeballs in the virus. Literally.
Game changer.
Means it's over, over there. They either close the borders, or die.
I have always said close the borders and stop air travel. Still don't think from what we've seen yet that this virus is going to become a global nor probably African pandemic.
Of course I've been wrong before...
Global will be tough, unless the virus is airborne. If you can walk through a crowded terminal building and catch it from someone coughing just ahead of you, then we'll have a global pandemic and right now. But I'm not expecting to see that.
An African pandemic is much more likely. I don't know what conditions are like over there in terms of roads and such. However if there comes a general panic in the civilian population -- checkpoint shootings by the military, shoot-on-sight of the ill, bodies uncollected in the streets, rumors of biological warfare -- the large cities are likely to empty. The roads will choke with vehicles, people will be walking, starving and thirsty, many might die and be left on the roadside. The expected chaotic conditions and rolling humanitarian crisis would create a breeding ground for ebola to spread and rapidly evolve into even more virulent forms. This is in no way overstating the issue. It really could become that bad or worse if African leadership, military and healthcare systems don't come together and craft a unified response plan.
They can plan all they want, if they don't have resources...
You may have missed the confirmed case in Mexico City LoP.
I'm so glad the southern border is secure.
But it is surely contained to the earth. The Ex-spurts assure us it hasn't
left the atmosphere yet. With a 99% probability.
Assuming everything is a lie is the prudent course, until we will find out in a fortnight or so,
what the truth is.
No problem, just stare at a rainbow while eating skittles and petting a unicorn. Problem solved.
You are soooo soothing. Now I don't have to call my sponsor.
Let's not forget the 21 detained in Thailand and 7 positive cases in the Phillipines.
Apparently some have already died (native translator provided details)
http://www.tinmoi.vn/dich-ebola-thai-lan-philippines-da-co-nguoi-nhiem-viet-nam-se-co-nguy-co-cao-011316842.html
Really cool resource guys. Shit it's popping up all around
Contagious Disease Surveillance | Virus Awareness | Ebola Map | HealthMap
http://healthmap.org/ebola/
And you may have missed that the 'case' in Mexico City is confirmed [NOT] to be Ebola.
What the truth is.
Link ?
Someone posted a link Saturday showing a positive test.
http://www.oem.com.mx/elsoldemexico/notas/n3496087.htm
truth? what is the "truth" these days? At the end of the day I'd prefer that the "truth" get settled by the quick and the dead. At least then we would all know exactly what to expect.
The truth is something you tell somebody so they can trust you. Once they are done trusting you, they move on to taunting you. So in the long run, nobody gets any respect.
Please remain calm the government has it all under control.
LOL
Zombiepocalypse. Andromeda Strain. Crichton told ya so.
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/books-andromedastrain-history.html
More like the beginning of The Stand, by Stephen King.
Africa will be ground-zero for this one. The death toll over the next 6 months will likely become staggering. But if I lived in a crowded urban core anywhere in the world I'd be nervous, especially once the refugees start to flow out of African cities like a river of human misery and disease.
obama shot a 98 on the back 9.
Rory wannabe.
98 strokes on Reggie's back 9? Sounds about right.
Reggie's back is the only place where he cums in under par, especially when he uses his Rahm driver.
Lot of high fives going around in some secret lab. That, or the planet has had enough of our shit.
The latter.
Be afraid.
If WHO is ruling out rapid containment, plan on this getting much worse, and interfering with global commerce.
Exactly. Not that global commerce is all that and a bag of chips, mind you.
At least Ebola isn't a subtle killer like Fuckyoushima radiation. The authorities here may try a cover-up but when people are bleeding out from every orifice it becomes somewhat of a challenge to maintain a secret or blame it on bad diet.
It's the weather
Climate sickness
They'll no doubt blame it on the heartless Teapublitards or some such.
They can work with the media to keep any news from finding a path to the public. All you will get are rumors -- if you get that -- and if you start rumor-mongering you'll end up in a detainment center.
This is a lot easier than you think. I mean, really easy.
Webbots predict Ebola falls off the MSM radar soon, but gosh we somehow have a horrible flu season this winter. Bear in mind the premise is they predict at best future headlines, NOT reality. Draw your own conclusions. I'm hoping a less lethal mutation is partly responsible (assuming that's a good thing, which is arguable).
Interesting if true. Though, news out of Africa never did count for a lot.
I can see it now.
For your own safety.
Stay in your house,
restrict your movement,
suspend your constitution,
obey your FEMA directors orders,
report and imprision anyone you think might be infected,
ignore the theft of trillions from your retirement,
ignore the corruption of your leaders,
turn in your gold,
For your safety.
You forgot one: buy stawks.
If you like your Ebola you can keep your Ebola.