This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
New York Times: Some May Carry Ebola Without Showing Any Symptoms
The New York Times reported in 2000:
The Ebola virus, which has caused deaths from high fever and bleeding in African outbreaks, can also infect without producing illness, according to a new finding by African and European scientists.
The possibility of asymptomatic infection was only suggested in earlier studies, they said in last week’s issue of The Lancet, a medical journal published in London. Now they said they had documented such infections for the first time. They found that the Ebola virus could persist in the blood of asymptomatic infected individuals for two weeks after they were first exposed to an infected individual. How much longer the virus can persist is unknown.
***
If people can be carriers without showing symptoms, it means control might be more difficult.
“This degree of containment would be virtually impossible if symptom-free carriers posed a significant threat of infection,” Dr. Alan G. Baxter of Newtown, Australia, wrote in an editorial in the same issue of The Lancet.
***
An immediate effect is to raise the need to reassess health policy about one of the most virulent viruses known and to determine how often healthy carriers transmit it, said the scientific team headed by Dr. E. M. Leroy of Franceville, Gabon.
***
Dr. Leroy’s team studied 25 individuals who never developed symptoms although they lived with family members and cared for them without using gloves and other precautions in two outbreaks in Gabon in 1996.
Using standard virologic techniques, the scientists from Gabon, Germany and France said they could not detect the virus in the blood of the healthy contacts. But Dr. Leroy’s succeeded by using a technique known as polymerase chain reaction to grow the tiny amount of virus present.
Here is the study published in Lancet. And here is the editor’s comment.
The Lancet study does not warn of an apocalyptic scenario where any casual contact could cause infection. It is more focused on contagion through sex or blood transfusions.
But Western governments and scientists have repeatedly said that Ebola carriers can only infect others if they are showing symptoms. So they need to adjust their strategies to account for potential contagion from people who aren’t showing any symptoms.
Aerosol Transmission
Two national experts on infectious disease transmission – both professors in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago – report that Ebola can be transmitted by aerosols … i.e. fluids mixed with air (footnotes omitted):
We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks. [Aerosols are liquids or small particles suspended in air. An example is sea spray: seawater suspended in air bubbles, created by the force of the surf mixing water with air.]
The important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.
***
Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.
***
Many body fluids, such as vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva, are capable of creating inhalable aerosol particles in the immediate vicinity of an infected person. Cough was identified among some cases in a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and coughs are known to emit viruses in respirable particles. The act of vomiting produces an aerosol and has been implicated in airborne transmission of gastrointestinal viruses. Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen-laden aerosol that disperses in the air.
***
There is also some experimental evidence that Ebola and other filoviruses can be transmitted by the aerosol route. Jaax et alreported the unexpected death of two rhesus monkeys housed approximately 3 meters from monkeys infected with Ebola virus, concluding that respiratory or eye exposure to aerosols was the only possible explanation.
Zaire Ebola viruses have also been transmitted in the absence of direct contact among pigsand from pigs to non-human primates, which experienced lung involvement in infection. Persons with no known direct contact with Ebola virus disease patients or their bodily fluids have become infected.
***
Experimental studies have demonstrated that it is possible to infect non-human primates and other mammals with filovirus aerosols. [Ebola is a type of filovirus]
Altogether, these epidemiologic and experimental data offer enough evidence to suggest that Ebola and other filoviruses may be opportunistic with respect to aerosol transmission. That is, other routes of entry may be more important and probable, but, given the right conditions, it is possible that transmission could also occur via aerosols.
In other words, these two infectious disease experts believe that Ebola is already – in its current form – transmissible via aerosols. They therefore urge all doctors and nurses working with Ebola patients to wear respirators.
We need to understand how Ebola is really spread, and then take appropriate counter-measures.
Ebola Is Mutating
In addition, Ebola is mutating. The discoverer of the disease (Dr. Peter Piot) said last week:
It is clear that the virus is mutating.
Indeed, top doctors say that - unless contained - it could eventually mutate to become airborne.
And the Washington Post notes that terrorists could use Ebola as a bio-weapon. The longer the outbreak rages, the more likely such a scenario becomes.
We Need a World War 2, Marshall Plan or Moon Landing Level Effort to Stop This
According to American nurses, the U.S. healthcare system is woefully unprepared to handle Ebola. Even the best Ebola tests can give false negatives, meaning that people with Ebola can be released into the community.
We need an effort on the scale of World War 2, the Marshall Plan or the moon shot to contain and eradicate this modern plague.
»
- advertisements -
femo camp
Long thermometers.
Long bulldozers and lighter fluid...
I love the hand delivered notification. Who's gonna hand deliver to someone with Ebola?
"But I am ashamed of appearing stupid!"
I mean seriously...a "communicable disease"?
Ebola ain't whooping cough.
Unfunded liabilities getting close to $1 million per household, time to thin the herd.
http://usadebtclock.com/
Thinning the herd accomplishes nothing and actually makes things worse unless it is a selective thinning, eliminating the eaters and preserving the producers. America is a land that prizes the eater over the producer so I see the road laid out ahead of us clearly. We will be much more concerned about protecting the ability of ill foreigners to come to our country than ever worrying about Americans. The only thing that is important is that we care more about others than ourselves. There is no problem in having the vast majority of Americans without a job as it only creates the opportunity to demonstrate our selflessness in the face of difficulty. We live for the collective and its consciousness. The individual does not exist.
Will that reduce the laibilities, or just increase all the survivors share?
Reverse stock split when the P&L is in the red.
President Obama, all members of our bicameral Congress (with Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, McCainus & Nancy Lindsey Graham, and a contingent of CEOs of the largest banks & bank holding companies, need to do a Hot Zone tour of the hardest hit areas in West Africa.
...an up, close & personal shaking hands & kissing babies type tour.
Haven't we read about a hundred versions of this post already?
Yep.
And they're all fantastic.
The first and last line of defense is denial.
So you're saying it's bad if an ebola patient sneezes on me? No fucking shit. We needed a doctor to figure this out?
Well, appears that the CDC needs somebody to guide them through the politically correct "Don't panic it's under control, don't blame me" bullshit.
Burn first, ask questions later.
Liberia is a lost cause, we should nuke it to make sure Ebola doesn't spread any more than it has. Anyone letting people out of West Africa should be locked in an isolation ward and sprayed with Ebola infected feces.
That includes Obama for not locking down air travel from Africa.
Throw a in a little ebola in the mix, and the erstwhile (somewhat) intelligent rational and freedom loving ZH crowd turns into a bunch of Nutty-yahoo Zio-zombie disciples... parroting his red lines, existential threats, and the need to blockade, blockade, blockade (just swap Iran or the Palestine for any State in West Africa).
I never knew there were so many closeted Anglo-Zionist imperialists on ZH. There are appropriate ways for sovereign States to interact to achieve goals, and then there is force (war).
"Blockading" those areas where this disease presents itself is just plain smart especially for the nations that have the outbreak. And restricting travel out of those same countries is what is best for the rest of the planet even if only to reduce global anxiety levels.
Not only do you limit the spread geographically but you can bring greater resource FOCUS to bear on those areas of infection. You would have to be some kind of nut to not want to have larger efficient and thus safer treament centers versus dozens or hundreds of little shabby dirt floor clinics trying to follow those who run and create new outbreaks.
If it's good for the ebola goose it's good for the Shiite (or Amerislave®) gander.
Like I said there are more "appropriate" ways of addressing ebola concerns -- nothing says the US has to grant entry Visas to Liberians (or allow US air carriers to fly into Monrovia), but that is very different from the fascist NWO smear-the-queer that is so often and alarmingly advocated now.
Perhaps it is ignorance of "little" things (like the law or unintended consequences), but since the USSA is now ebola infected, I don't think most Americans would be like being told by the EUSSR that they are not free to leave the USSA and stuck on the plantation until the USSA wipes out all its ebola infected occupants (or however many it rounds in FEMA camps for show to placate TPTB).
Ebola: The New Gay
Ebola Gay.
It's more that just a bomb dropper.
"We are about to drop literature on the last stronghold of un-hip resistance...3000 copies of The Naked Lunch..."
Then we'll all play "Beat the Reaper".
FIREHEAD
Surface Music '81
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtsWD41n7vM
Warning: May Get Stuck In Your Head.
THAT VIDEO SUCKS. I am of the era. Thank God I never heard this before. I could have gone to my grave without that faux-Devo smegma. Thanks for ruining three minutes of my life. I'll never get it back, never.
even though mccormick no 9 is a dildo, i have to agree with him on this one.
the video is indeed faux devo smegma
here, have the real thing instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU
Devo - Freedom Of Choice (Video)Wow, such vehemence. Y'all forgot to down arrow though. If it interests you, I found Devo in '76, I have their first single with the 3 part fold out cover (Mongoloid/Jocko Homo); saw them live at the Old Waldorf before their first album came out (Brian Eno produced) and caught every tour after that including the 1984 New Year's Eve show. Good times. Surface Music was a band from Concord that was more than just that single, though that vid seems to be their Last Hurrah (the song was '77 or '78; the band I was managing played with them several times.) They were more like Devo plus Captain Beefheart and that song was a throw away single (Gary said it took him 5 min to write) that became a local radio thing. Thought it was topical re: the janitor who didn't get the memo on hazmat; also catchy tune.
Thanks for the posturing, posers.
I Was A Punk Before You Were https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RaWmimpe1g
Dare To Be Stupid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhwddNQSWQ
Another local band of the time: Chrome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygTN2UForuA
Quarantine all overseas travelers until they are shown to be free of Ebola. No travel to or from the stricken countries of West Africa. That may sound over the top but if you want to stop this in it's tracks that's what it will take at a minimum.
...add in the US Military building base hospitals, forward operating posts, etc.
Hmmm?
This is going to end badly.
is anyone familiar with 'ellis island'?
UUhhhh......GUYS AND GALS ????
I have discovered something a bit....interesting....and disturbing.
This article came out today with an interview of the scientist who first discovered Ebola in 1976. In he says....
"Professor Piot, as a young scientist in Antwerp, you were part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How did it happen?
I still remember exactly. One day in September, a pilot from Sabena Airlines brought us a shiny blue Thermos and a letter from a doctor in Kinshasa in what was then Zaire. In the Thermos, he wrote, there was a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had recently fallen ill from a mysterious sickness in Yambuku, a remote village in the northern part of the country."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outb...
The Ebola sample, which know one had identified yet came from Kinshasa. I knew I had read that name in the news just a few days ago. Well......here it is again.....but only about AIDS !
"An international team of scientists say a "perfect storm" of population growth, sex and railways allowed HIV to spread.
A feat of viral archaeology was used to find the pandemic's origin, the team report in the journal Science.
They used archived samples of HIV's genetic code to trace its source, with evidence pointing to 1920s Kinshasa."
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29442642
What is up with KINSASHA ? Is it all the infected bush meat, especially fruit bats that they eat there ?
Is there a Bio-Warfare Lab in Kinsasha?
Since the 20s?
Kinshasa et al, around thereabouts down over yonder is a fucking petri dish for Porton Down and Ft Detrick, et al
If carriers are asymptomatic and never contract the disease, quarantine will do nothing.
Wasn't typhoid Mary shot to death in the end ?
No, but she was put under lock and key.
Why not hire those Africans who survive the ebola virus as healthcare workers since they already have developed immunity to the disease?
Save a fortune in hazmat suits as well...
because you need more than three?
George why no articles about enterovirus? This thing is all over the place and kids are actually dying from it right now.
Thats some high quality fear porn George. Keep in mind of the news reports say "Diagnosed with Ebola". Let that sink in then read these:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/ebolagate-47-questions-and-...
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/the-ebola-test-let-the-test...
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/is-1st-us-ebola-patient-a-h..."
I've done countless PCRs. What this link says about PCRs is so ill-informed and misleading the rest of the article is surely equally worse-than-useless misinformation.
jon rapppaport? really?
maybe while you're at it you can quote mike adams "the health ranger" of natural news, michael snyder, glen beck, and alex jones, and you can tell us all about ufos, chemtrails, and the lizard people who are taking over planet earth!
if you want to indulge on your own in fake news sites such as "nomorefakenews", that's fine, but ebola is a serious issue, don't muddy the waters with made up BS.
Skepticism from a guy whose name implies the hoarding of tiny bits of precious metals?
Well, I say that one should always balance their skeptical bent with an open mind.
Ebola can reasonably be any one of the following:
An engineered bioweapon released accidentally.
Ditto released intentionally.
A natural phenomenon of too many people encroaching on wild lands, eating bats, etc.
A complete hoax.
The only people who know aren't talking, or if they are, we have no way of verifying their statements. The rest of us- the truth is we don't have enough info to make the definitive statement of fact. Rappaport's OPINION is as good as anyone else's.
most of what you just said, makes sense, except for your first and last sentence.
first, skepticism is always good, from anyone, and there's no contradiction between stacking and skepticism. in fact, they are absolutely complementary, i'm surprised you don't undestand that. stacking is skepticism of the status quo, and skepticism of an insane, out of balance financial system. as a side note, i mostly stack 100oz bars, they are not "tiny bits", so excuse you!
lastly, rappaport's opinion is crap, and shouldn't be stated as factual, when it is only an opnion.
So we are spreading exagerated fear (probably true for Europe and NA) and making tons of money for pharma (not yet) and using a test for ebola that the inventor says doesn't work. Ok... I hear you.
You would prefer to sit back and watch it kill millions before you act? (too late BTW)
Or do you believe like the author of the second article that ebola like HIV/AIDS doesn't exist?
“Kary Mullis… is thoroughly convinced that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. With regard to the viral-load tests, which attempt to use PCR for counting viruses, Mullis has stated: ‘Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron.’ PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers.
Just askin'...
Unfortunately Mullis lost the plot as badly as Peter Duesburg. Yet another case of astounding denial in the face of irrefutable fact. Sort of like AGW deniers come to think of it.
Mullis is out of date with the technology he himself first came up with. Sad but true. I've done countless PCRs and am a major author on an important-in-the-field paper based on a PCR technology, first nucleotide change analysis. A long story. Let's just say if the general public only knew: life in the life sciences makes James Bond look dull.
Anyway, while Mullis is right in that PCR started off as a qualitative technique it has evolved into a quantitative technology in the last 5 or 10 years and it is increasingly being used in this manner.
Back when i was doing a massive number of PCRs and we couldn't afford so much proprietary TAQ polymerase a plasmid that made the enzyme happened to fall off the back of a truck in a lab down the hall. I directed my excellent technician in how to brew it up. We cheaply made a big batch and never looked back. So many muppets in rich labs can't imagine existence withhout proprietary kits:) When I needed to HLA type a large bunch of abdominal aortic aneurysm patients and controls and we couldn't afford any of the expensive kits put out by various biotech companies I went to the journals. (The local hospital hematology expert moaned that he would dearly like to do PCR-based HLA typing but there was no way his lab could afford the kits. I forthwith crossed him off as not worth talking to any further.) Into the HLA typing literature and Swat, swat, swat. OK. Order !0 sets of the appropriate primer pairs for under $1000 all up and we're in business, so much business we can share the primers with other labs.
"diagnosed with ebola" gets About 14,800,000 results on the googles
"tested positive for ebola" gets About 147,000 results on the googles.
Thats 100:1
Since this is all fake, will you go to Liberia and work with those who claim to be afflicted with something? Will you go work with the nurse in Spain who has fakely contracted this, and let us know her story is a lie?
You believe it is a fake and a lie, right? You should be fine.
Go to Dallas and look in on Duncan with no protective gear. Let us know if that is a lie please.
I'll buy your ticket if you are worried about the cost to you to do one of these investigative trips.
Since it's obvious our politicians are virtually rolling out the red carpets for it, I recommend they be forced to stand and greet all incoming passengers from affected areas themselves. That would create a total ban in 3 seconds. Meanwhile us commoners will get the usual "a day late and many lives short" version.
Some have suggested they are fishing for a reaction. Others say, because they have the patent they are trying to spread it so they can sell vaccines for gold and emerge as the great white knight that saved us all. There is no money in Africa, so they bring it to richer countries for $$$. While I do not question there may be something to this angle, it would be wise for these people to stop gloating because they think they have it "figured out" and realize the grave danger. This is of an entirely different magnitude.
Lock it down until medicine catches up and has the upper hand (quick and accurate tests, cure etc.)
Goerge! That expalins it all! I'd always wondered what was wrong with Krugman, Friedman and Dowd