Ebola virus outbreak 'out of control'

[White Crane Feather]

Liberia :( :(

When the hospitals start closing those poor people are defenseless. If they dont step up an offensive on this soon Liberia could be wiped out.

Straight from doctors without borders

Liberia

The situation in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, is “catastrophic,” according to Lindis Hurum, MSF emergency coordinator in Liberia. There are reports of at least 40 health workers being infected with Ebola over recent weeks. Most of the city’s hospitals are closed, and there are reports of dead bodies lying in streets and houses.

MSF teams are providing technical support for an Ebola case management center in Monrovia in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, and has started construction of a new case management center.

An MSF team based in Guékédou, Guinea, has recently launched a response in Liberia’s Lofa region, alongside the Guinean border, which has been badly affected by Ebola.

MSF is reinforcing its current team of nine international staff and 10 Liberian staff, but the organization is reaching the limits of its capacity, and there is a dire need for the WHO, Ministry of Health, and other organizations to rapidly and massively scale up the response in Liberia.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/field-news/update-ebola-west-africa

[cruz1923]

http://preventebola.com/public/index.php/news/54-cdc-changes-criteria-for-ebola-transmission-admits-being-within-3-feet-or-in-same-room-can-cause-infection it may have gone airborne

[aquatus1]

I would submit that websit has a somewhat biased view on the matter. They may not be wrong, but their conclusions as questionable.

[rodentraiser]

Have you seen/watched people and what they do with their hands? The scratch their ears, rub their eyes, some pick their nose or scratch it, put lip gloss on their lips with their finger tips, lick the leavings of their meals off their fingers, eat with their hands, wipe their hands on towels then wipe their faces, including the exposed eyes, mouth and nose where "mucus" is available for transerence. To say you can't get it from toilet seats or taps is simplistic because it is based on a simplistic chain of circumstances, but people do not act in simplistic ways do they?

Yes, they do. That's how people get colds and flu from phones and keyboards. That's why you're not supposed to do things like that. But if you could get Ebola by casual contact, you could get AIDS the same way. I doubt if anyone yet has gotten AIDS from a seat someone else with AIDS had just been sitting in.

[rodentraiser]

You are walking on thin ice here.

Hardly. That's from the CDC.

Your statement might be correct for the AIDS virus but not for the Ebola virus. And it seems that the Ebola virus

do not require a cut or break in the skin to get transmitted. I do not say the virus is able to pass the intact skin

but I`m sure it can be transmitted throught the mouth/eyes as there is mucosa.

I said, and I'll quote myself: "First off, the only way to get Ebola is through contact with the bodily fluids of an Ebola victim, and then you have to bring those fluids into contact with your mucus membranes, just like AIDS."

I think it's a given that your mouth and eyes contain mucous membranes. I just thought everyone already knew that. Why do you think the doctors treating Ebola patients wear masks and goggles?

When it comes to needles, you get the Ebola virus just like you do AIDS. Someone uses a needle to inject themselves with heroin and then they pass it off to the next person, who uses the same needle without cleaning it off. What's happening is the needle has blood on it from the previous person and that blood gets injected into the next person's bloodstream - with the virus in it. This is what happened in 1976 when Ebola was discovered in Zaire. The Belgian nuns didn't have enough needles to give malaria shots with, so they used the same needles over and over, sharpening them when they got dull. Sometimes they rinsed the needles off in a pan of water. But what they really did, was pass the virus along to each person they gave a shot to, and that's what spread Ebola then. You can look that up.

By the way, anyone here still against the clean needle exchange programs?

[rodentraiser]

http://preventebola....cause-infection it may have gone airborne

It says, "...3 feet away while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment..."

That part was sort of left out of the "airborne" hysteria there.

And wearing protective gear makes sense. Sick people thrash around. But - and I should look this up - there was a CDC doctor that spent the night in a hut full of people ill from Ebola trying to get blood samples. He had on no special protective gear and he did not get Ebola. I'll page through my books and see if I can find out his name.

*edited because I accidentally posted bfefore I was through. It's been a long day.

Edited August 11, 2014 by rodentraiser

[libstaK]

It says, "...3 feet away while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment..."

That part was sort of left out of the "airborne" hysteria there.

And wearing protective gear makes sense. Sick people thrash around. But - and I should look this up - there was a CDC doctor that spent the night in a hut full of people ill from Ebola trying to get blood samples. He had on no special protective gear and he did not get Ebola. I'll page through my books and see if I can find out his name.

*edited because I accidentally posted bfefore I was through. It's been a long day.

Well if contact with mucus is bodily fluid to bodily fluid the luckless traveller who doesn't know any better (and that would be a large percentage of them WILL transfer to their eyes, nose of mouth, that's a given.

[libstaK]

Just saw this: Patient Zero

The current outbreak was likely started by a 2 year old in Guinea

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/11/health/ebola-patient-zero/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

[toast]

http://preventebola....cause-infection it may have gone airborne

The article is maculature as some facts are not mentioned and some facts are taken into a new/wrong context.

As per CDC (see link in the article):

Low risk exposures

A low risk exposure includes any of the following

• Household member or other casual contact1 with an EVD patient
  
• Providing patient care or casual contact1 without high-risk exposure with EVD patients in health care facilities in EVD outbreak
  
• affected countries
  

1 Casual contact is defined as a) being within approximately 3 feet (1 meter) or within the room or care area for a prolonged period

of time (e.g., healthcare personnel, household members) while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment (i.e., droplet

and contact precautions–see Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations); or having direct brief contact (e.g., shaking hands)

with an EVD case while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment (i.e., droplet and contact precautions–see Infection

Prevention and Control Recommendations). At this time, brief interactions, such as walking by a person or moving through a

hospital, do not constitute casual contact.

So the claim:

CDC Changes Criteria for Ebola Transmission; admits "being within 3 feet" or "in same room" can cause infection

... is a lie/nonsens as the CDC didn`t said so and Ebola has not gone airborne. BS.

[libstaK]

Well, the death toll is now 1013 and infected is 1838 souls. On June 26 - about 6 weeks ago it wasn't even 500. I am not at all convinced that they understand the nature of the spread of this particular strain or that they have it under any semblance of control. We will definitely know in 3 to 6 weeks though, because I expect the number will double again if the current speed of it's spread is any indicator.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/12/health/ebola-outbreak/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[Sundew]

The fact that it has entered Lagos, Nigeria, the most densely populated African city is not good news. Hopefully they can contain it, if not it will get ugly really fast.

[Lumpino]

Just out of curiosity.................

http://www.viralglobalnews.com/health/can-ebola-be-cured-with-vitamin-c/13925/

https://www.patrickholford.com/blog/can-vitamin-c-kill-ebola-virus

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17449602

What about a doctor?

[aquatus1]

It's kind of like cancer. Lots of things will kill it in the lab. The question is what will kill it in the field.

[libstaK]

128 new cases and the death toll risen to 1069 just two days after their last count was given as 1013.

http://edition.cnn.c....html?hpt=hp_t3

They need to provide a map of the spread, from patient to patient and their relationship to each other. I still stand by the fact that they do not have definitive understanding of causal relationships which are enabling the spread of this particular outbreak but the information is so thin on the ground in the public domain that we don't have anything to work with but conjecture and assumption of which my niggling suspicion and premise is a part, I'll admit that.

Edited August 13, 2014 by libstaK

[questionmark]

They need to provide a map of the spread, from patient to patient and their relationship to each other.

You are talking Africa, not Arkansas.

[Ashotep]

The reason Ebola has spread so easy in Africa is because you have a population that is superstitious and afraid of doctors so they won't go until they are really sick. The family keeps them hid until everyone is sick spreading it through the community. Some think the doctors are giving them the disease. Then in other places they are throwing infected dead bodies in the streets.

I think it could spread to any country via air travel. It takes up to 21 days to show symptoms. As long as a country has good health care for its citizens, even the working poor, it wouldn't get too far. Now if you have part of your citizens that can't afford health care you might end up with a problem. They will go to work sick. Some places require you to work even if you are sick and a lot of those places are fast food restaurants That needs stopped.

I read about a year ago there is evidence Ebola, same type killing people now, has limited airborne capabilities. I'm assuming more because droplets of a sneeze/cough can drift in the air for a few feet. If this present outbreak keeps up long enough it may develop more than limited capabilities.

[Ashotep]

Here's an Ebola outbreak I bet you never heard about. Crazy thing is this type wasn't deadly to humans only monkeys. This strain came from the Philippines though.

25 years ago in Virginia, a very different Ebola outbreak

[rodentraiser]

I read The Hot Zone when it first came out and so I knew about Ebola Reston then. What Richard Preston wrote then was there were suspicions that there were sick monkeys being turned loose on an island in Lake Tanganyika. Since the monkeys were ill with all sorts of things, it was like a hot zone there. And when the monkey traders needed monkeys, that was where they went to get them. Supposedly, that's where the Reston macques came from before they were shipped to the Philippines and then to the US.

A good way to read about the first outbreak of EBola in 1976 is the Ebola chapter in Laurie Garrett's book "The Coming Plague".

[jesspy]

Is it in Madagascar yet?

[BiffSplitkins]

Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly have been cured of the Ebola virus and released from Emory Hospital in Atlanta.

Brantly, 33, called his recovery "a miraculous day."

"I am thrilled to be alive, to be well, and reunited with my family," he said.

He also told a news conference at Emory Hospital that "God saved my life."

Both patients were given blood and urine tests to determine whether they still had the virus, Emory doctors said in a statement released this morning.

What's Happening Now in the Ebola Outbreak

American Doctor With Ebola Received Experimental Antibody Serum Before U.S. Arrival

How Did Ebola Patients Get Experimental Serum?

"After a rigorous course of treatment and testing we have determined...that (Brantly) has recovered from the Ebola virus disease and he can return to his family, to his community, and to his life without any public health concerns," Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of Emory’s Infectious Disease Unit, said today.

Link to Story

Whoever signed his release forms hasn't been communicating very well with WHO have they?

http://www.who.int/m...heets/fs103/en/

From the article:

People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. Ebola virus was isolated from semen 61 days after onset of illness in a man who was infected in a laboratory.

Men who have recovered from the disease can still transmit the virus through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery from illness.

[libstaK]

Ivory Coast has now closed it's borders. What I am finding interesting is that the virus is dropping in it's mortality rates. We have gone from 90%, to 60% then 50% and now are at 47%. Is the virus adapting to it's human host?

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=270881&st=150

[aquatus1]

Well, in the sense that any strain that kills the host too quickly won't get to spread as much as a strain that allows the host more time to travel.

[questionmark]

Well, in the sense that any strain that kills the host too quickly won't get to spread as much as a strain that allows the host more time to travel.

That is one possibility, the other is that the treatment gets better with the increases of the case load. After a while you know what errors you have committed previously.

[libstaK]

Well I sincerely hope the progress in treating the disease is also inclusive of progress in understanding the means of transmission of the disease because now we have a member of WHO infected.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/24/world/africa/ebola-outbreak/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[Ashotep]

The disease could be mutating so it doesn't kill as fast. That gives it the opportunity to infect more people. It could even end up spreading easier.

It seems the Ebola virus in the DR Congo isn't the same strain that's making people sick in the other 4 countries. Is it a new strain?