WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak An International Emergency 183
mdsolar (1045926) writes with news that, with the Ebola outbreak growing out of control, the WHO has declared an international health emergency. From the article: With cases rapidly mounting in four West African countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) today declared the Ebola outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), a designation that allows the agency to issue recommendations for travel restrictions but also sends a strong message that more resources need to be mobilized to bring the viral disease under control. ... This is only the third time the health agency has issued a PHEIC declaration since the new International Health Regulations (IHR), a global agreement on the control of diseases, were adopted in 2005. The previous two instances were in 2009, for the H1N1 influenza pandemic, and in May for the resurgence of polio.
Unavoidable (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. ...
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Putting the implied mass murder and ironclad tyranny aside for a moment, it's impossible to live in perpetual balance with nature, since nature is not static. Nor did low world population prevent Smallpox or the Black Death from appearing; indeed, diseases like Ebola typically emerge in regions that are less developed and thus "closer to nature", according to this kind of hippy bullshit.
keep calm everyone.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are literally playing in a sick persons bodily fluids, the risk is almost 0
Re: (Score:1)
So the nearly 1800 people infected so far were literally playing in a sick person's bodily fluids?
What do you think goes on in West Africa?
Re:keep calm everyone.... (Score:5, Informative)
They haven't ingrained with germ theory since they were toddlers. Their funeral rites often include hand-washing and kissing the deceased.
Re: keep calm everyone.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Terrible sanitation, including drinking from the same water supply in which people bathe and defecate? There are few places in the affected region where one can turn on the tap and get municipal water, you know. That's why simply installing hand-washing stations with soap and relatively clean water has routinely made such a huge impact on the spread of Ebola and other gut-wrenching illnesses over there.
If you're going to be a pedantic ass, you really should make an attempt to have a passing familiarity with
Re: (Score:2)
That's a crude way of wording typical funeral rites over there, which apparently involve washing the deceased by hand.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Hello good sir.
I represent Reynolds Consumer Products, LLC. I believe we have a wide array of products you may be interested in. You may find our Heavy Duty foil especially useful.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Re: (Score:1)
How do you explain the doctors and nurses who have been infected ? Playing with a sick person fluids while they knew it is highly likely to kill them ? Get a clue.
Re:keep calm everyone.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From reading a few articles on the conditions there it seems that it's because they're one or two doctors or nurses in a ward with several dozen patients puking, shitting, pissing, bleeding and falling out of beds and spreading contamination _everywhere_.
Fair enough. I can see why no hazmat gear and protective procedures in the world will protect you over a longer period under those conditions.
Re: (Score:1)
less than 1000 deaths were REPORTED, people are fleeing the scene, doctors included.
how accurate a picture can such a summation be?
Re:keep calm everyone.... (Score:5, Informative)
As I said last time this topic came up, the fear is not that Ebola will spread by people playing in each others' bodily fluids. The fear is that it'll spread beyond a containment zone in Africa, then mutate into a form which can be spread through the air. That's what happens to the various strains of flu. It usually starts off in a form which jumps from animals to man via direct contact. That limits it to farmers and people who work directly with animals (e.g. butchers, cooks in restaurants). But then mutates into a form which spreads easily via the air, which is when it becomes a pandemic.
Of course Ebola is very different from the flu. It may be very difficult or impossible for Ebola to mutate into a form which can survive long enough in water droplets that sick people cough/sneeze into the air. But we don't know that. Given how deadly the disease is (50%-90% fatality rate, vs about 15% for the Spanish Flu that killed more people than WWI), it's a stupid assumption to make. That's why the international health agencies are assuming the worst-case and handling it as if it was going to mutate into something communicable via the air.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why do you invent bullshit, like this: The fear is that it'll spread beyond a containment zone in Africa, then mutate into a form which can be spread through the air. ... for fuck sake ... if it concerns you so much that you even fear it, read a few articles about Flu and another few articles about Ebola?
That is your fear because you have no clue.
Why don't you
It is completely impossible. Ebola is a Filovirus, Flu is a Orthomyxoviridae. The most important difference is, Flu has a 'hull' around its genome. Eb
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Setting aside the specific mechanics of the virus ...
Are you making the claim there is no way that Ebola could mutate into something which could spread more readily than it does now?
I'm pretty sure there's probably more people currently infected than at any point in history -- because historically it's spread in a small community and then died out, no?
Having is spread further outside of Africa doesn't seem all that impossible -- what with modern air travel and the like, you could end up with a huge amount o
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, most of your 'fear of mutation' arguments can be dismissed right away.
The disease infects slowly, so, it takes a while that people realize, there is an out break.
The only concrete fear/sound concern is: people are infected roughly 2 weeks until the illness manifests.
Hence there are extreme chances that an infected person reaches a country outside of africa. Hence all outbreak regions are closed off.
However the topic was about bringing an infected american into a hospital in america. People suddenly sh
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm freely admitting my ignorance, and rejecting the categorical claim that it could never, under any circumstances, mutate into a form which spreads further and faster than it does now.
That's it? That's the most you have to add to this?
No wonder you posted as AC.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Because, all categorical statements are wrong, or incomplete.
Including the above.
Actually... (Score:1)
Heres a genetic study demonstrating the feasibility of mutation. It's targeted at catastrophic social collapse, and I think it's highly appropriate for this discussion. http://tinyurl.com/4ckyxw
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You're wrong. Like, really wrong. Ebola isn't a blank RNA strand (ignoring the fact that "blank RNA" doesn't make any sense - in order for it to be RNA, it has to have bases in it, which means it encodes information; you meant bare, probably, but even that is wrong). It has a protein-based envelope around it, as well as a small lipid bilayer. Seriously, that took less than a minute to look up. If it was just RNA, the normal RNAses in your body would make it a non-issue.
I also really enjoy how you make fun o
Re:keep calm everyone.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Since it's already happened in one form, it's not only not far-fetched, it's more likely than not, and we can't say what its effects would be (perhaps benign, perhaps even more lethal). So, yeah, by all means keep the damn thing contained as best we can.
This game video done by a friend is interesting from a modern-vectors standpoint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ebola mutating to be airborne is a terrifying concept. Basically it'll be a real life Captain Trips.
Rigged statistics. (Score:4, Interesting)
more people die in 1 month from the flu in africa (over 5 K from the last article i saw ) than they die from ebola last year.
But those people dieing of of the flue are often compromised in some other way, such as old age or malnutrition.
you might as well say that more people in africa die of old age every day than all ebola deaths combined.
The reason people fear ebola is that unlike old age, it spreads and attacks the healthy.
Unless you are literally playing in a sick persons bodily fluids, the risk is almost 0
the exact same exaggeration is true of flu. You catch flu by being in close proximity to someone with the flu or some a vector that can temporarily support the flu's transmission, just like ebola.
Re:Rigged statistics. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's more about the fatality rate. 50-90% vs 2-3% for really virulent flu like in 2009.
Even the spanish flu was about 15%.
Plus choking isn't nearly as dramatic as bleeding blood out of every orafice and even the skin.
Re: (Score:3)
As you say, the death rate is normally between 50 and 90%, but obviously that's comparing different outbreaks, not an average of all infections from Ebola ever. Some past outbreaks have been at the 90% rate but current reports seem to indicate that the death rate for this outbre
Re: (Score:3)
I think this is panic, mainly because experts are afraid of some mythical nightmare scenario where it gets into a large city and overwhelms the medical infrastructure's ability to cope, and it infects millions.
I think it remains to be seen whether such a scenario would actually play-out that way, or whether other factors would intervene. We've seen situations in history, like Black Plague, and the Spanish Flu, where they did, indeed balloon up beyond anyone's expectations - one wonders whether that will hap
Re: (Score:2)
Funny enough I think "panic" is _exactly_ what frightens the crap out of governments of heavily populated and prosperous countries. Citizens acting irrationally and taking evasive actions that craters economies -- that's the stuff apocalyptic books are made of. The entire world could change in a matter of months if this hit a few major cities in America, Europe, Russia and other major nations.
People don't panic _as much_ about flu pandemics because of lower death rates and healthy folks typically only havin
Re: (Score:3)
Actually the problem with people panicking is they tend to do the stupidest possible thing en masse. Ebola infection in a city - quick, cram on the buses and flee! Congregate in public places to stockpile supplies! Like 90% of the things people would try are the exact things which turn a mild, containable outbreak into a large one.
Re: (Score:2)
Same principle applied to the Newcastle outbreak on chicken farms (mostly small producers) a few years ago. Inspectors dashed madly from farm to farm checking for infected chickens, spreading the virus as they went. Smart farmers locked the gate (the inspection was voluntary) and saved their chickens. (Smarter ones vaccinated, but I don't know how good the vaccine is. Tho it's useful for treating distemper in dogs.)
Re:keep calm everyone.... (Score:5, Informative)
You wouldn't know that listening to the idiotic TV news. They seriously have been playing it as if everyone in the US is at grave risk of dropping dead from this.
The threats made against that second infected doctor being brought back to the US were almost certainly a direct result of the media's irresponsible reporting.
Despite all their condescending scaremongering, there is simply zero realistic risk to the US general public.
Re: (Score:2)
Doom and Gloom (Score:2)
Sure more people might get the Flu and die, but they would eventually die from what? Dehydration? Suffocation?
It isn't quite the same as getting the "Flesh Eating" disease having your tissue go necrotic and dying from either the above, organ failure or bleeding out due to lack of clotting. It also looks a hell of a lot scarier in the media.
So yeah, while the numbers are not really there, any increase, even small increase compared to others, are taken as more alarming.
You probably have a better chance of dyi
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if a more dangerous vector would be a mutation that allowed it to have other carrier species. Something is carrying it now without dying. If some bird species got it without dying that could turn ugly.
Plague, Inc. (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one who views these things differently after playing a few hours of Plague, Inc?
Re: (Score:1)
No, you're not :)
I've been addicted to that game for a long time. My favorite strategy is to do whatever it takes to keep the disease from producing symptoms, even at a great upfront cost. The key is to let it spread as far as possible before it mutates symptoms.
Fun fun fun!
Re: (Score:3)
This makes me want to move to Madagascar before they lock down their borders.
Screw that. I'm going to Greenland, and dreaming of large women.
Re: (Score:2)
Both their borders just closed, you are too late.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, but if thou dost upgrade birds + rats + sheep to their second levels, another tile appears in between all of them (I forget what it's called).
Anyway, that tile will occasionally lead to spontaneous animal-to-human infections, which gives you another crack at Greenland. At least with bacteria, iirc.
Global Emergency? But What Color Code? (Score:1, Flamebait)
The WHO has declared an emergency? Well, that's fine, but let's do it the Murkan way. Would you prefer "Hot Pink," "Schoolbus Yellow," or "Fire Engine Red." We badly need for our top world leaders to work out the colors for our color code. What are these world leaders wasting their time on, if we don't have color-coded posters for airports?
You can help out (Score:5, Interesting)
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has been working with WHO, MSF, and Red Cross since the outbreak began in march to map roads and villages in the affected areas. These maps are used by medical teams to move people, medicine, and equipment around, as well as to do "contact tracing" of infected people to see who they might also have infected. The maps are crowdsourced and released under a copyleft license like wikipedia uses. If you want to help out you can check out a task to work on on the HOT task manager [hotosm.org] and help improve the maps these organizations are using to do their work. There are some instructional videos on the MapGive site [state.gov] run by the US State Department which has donated a bunch of imagery for us to better map the affected areas.
Please take some time to learn how to help with this mapping and help these doctors do what they need to do.
-AndrewBuck
This is why (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You can help out (Score:5, Insightful)
We actually have a wiki page [openstreetmap.org] about that exact issue. We have worked on this quite a bit to work out the best way to tag the roads in Africa to handle the huge variety of what they have there. It really makes you appreciate the infrastructure that the developed world has when you see how difficult it would be to travel in these parts of the world.
-AndrewBuck
What good timing (Score:1)
The WHO's timing is impeccable. 5:15 on the dot.
WHO declares first.... (Score:3, Funny)
Abbott: You have a disease outbreak in Africa.
Costello: Then WHO declares it?
Abbott: Naturally.
Costello: Naturally.
Abbott: Now you've got it.
Costello: The outbreak is declared Naturally.
Abbott: No, it is declared by Who!
Costello: Naturally.
Abbott: Well, that's it—say it that way.
Costello: That's what I said.
Abbott: You did not.
Surprised no one has mentioned it... (Score:2, Funny)
Dr. Who? (Score:2)
Why are you calling him a WHO? I thought he was just "the doctor".
Hmmm. (Score:2)
Actual Data (Score:2, Informative)
For people who want to base opinions/conclusions on actual data, here's one chart of the progression trend as of Aug 8, tracked since beginning of July (data taken directly from WHO):
http://bl.ocks.org/santanubasu/aa75ada045560ec4f4c8
Time to move to Prepperville, USA? Not really.
Global epidemic? Not at this point.
Getting worse? Yup.
Tapering off? Maybe, but the most recent data tends to get revised.
So maybe this will get much worse, maybe it will peter out. Either way, whoever looks at the data will hav
Re: (Score:1)
They're an English band.
Re:who? (Score:4, Funny)
They need Doctor Who...
continutity error, plz correct (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
More garbage comments from an anonymous coward.
Re:who? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like that someone modded him up, as if flu vaccines don't substantially lower fatality rate among at-risk populations, such as young children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems.
Just because catching flu doesn't tend to kill healthy adults, they just write-off the rest of the world in the perfect mixture of selfishness and ignorance, all the while acting smugly superior about the conspiracy only they can see.
Re: (Score:3)
Which is why you're not on a computer right now, but instead trying to secure a future by nakedly chasing down a cow and killing it with your bare hands.
Re:who? (Score:5, Funny)
The judge said I wasn't allowed to do that anymore.
Wait, what? Oh, never mind, forget I said anything.
Re: (Score:2)
The same bunch, who profited massively from selling "flu vaccines" by stirring up a flu panic.
Still waiting for that Ebola vaccine....
This is nonsense. The WHO doesn't sell flu vaccines. It does purchase and distribute vaccines to places that can't afford them. Long live rock.
Ebola is real if you live in one of the countries in Africa that has and Ebola outbreak. But for most of the rest of the world, "Worldwide Outbreak" sounds a bit like hyperbole. More like "Continent Wide Outbreak". But it is the WHO, not the CHO, so you get what you get.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:First.... (Score:5, Funny)
Too late to become a prepper?
Re:First.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I like preppers, they rarely, if ever, actually understand the consequences of social collapse, and falsely view increased individualism as the primary consequence of major institutional failure.
They don't consider the social structures that arise in post-governmental situations. The importance of community connectivity increases with importance as rigid social structures fail. You want a local warlord, a gang, a tribe, or some other primitive power structure, if you want to survive in a "lawless" world.
Re: (Score:2)
that's just stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems you get your information about preppers from reality TV shows. The actual reality is much different. Take some time to read prepper blogs, they are all about community and tribe.
Re: (Score:2)
Grade C Bullshit.
I know it's a section on wikipedia [wikipedia.org] but you can see the naive individualism oozing off almost, but not quite, every term.
Re: (Score:2)
You are the one spewing BS. Read some actually preparedness forums, very different than the stereotypes between your ears.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they're pretty much exactly as described. But thanks for making me waste time and suffer the posts of delusional idiots.
Re:First.... (Score:5, Funny)
I like preppers, they rarely, if ever, actually understand the consequences of social collapse, and falsely view increased individualism as the primary consequence of major institutional failure.
They don't consider the social structures that arise in post-governmental situations. The importance of community connectivity increases with importance as rigid social structures fail. You want a local warlord, a gang, a tribe, or some other primitive power structure, if you want to survive in a "lawless" world.
Oh sure, grouping up provides an immediate boost to strength, but It'll only last for so long. This australian case study from 1985 http://tinyurl.com/h4otx [tinyurl.com] proved that such a social structure is only as strong as it's weakest link. A stronger individual will always appear in time and take your group apart. It's pretty much proven as the same results were witnessed in 2 previous studies. I hear they are going to run it again. I expect the same outcome.
Heres a similar sociological study demonstrating the feasibility of individual survival. It's not as targeted at catastrophic social collapse, but i think it's safe to extrapolate. http://tinyurl.com/3xpd3n [tinyurl.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Post-collapse, sure. During the actual collapse though we'll have tons of people in utter desperation who are short on water, food, firewood and all the basic essentials for survival and has absolutely nothing to lose and who'll totally overwhelm what nature can provide. The first wave of power structures will be all about stealing what other people have, totally unsustainable but sure to cause great grief until they run out of easy targets or run into a bigger pack.
A good example is nuclear holocaust - it'
Re: (Score:2)
During a collapse the number of people who are desperate - by definition - is a lot bigger then those who have everything they need. Guess who's going down first? It's not going to be the guy who tries to supply them with things, it's going to be the guy with the lights on who keeps shooting at everyone near his property. An active threat to everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Here's the problem: there's a difference between desperate and starving. You can go a long time without food if you were previously well-nourished - upto 3 weeks or so with no real problems. Which means you have a long time to realize you're in trouble, rally your allies etc.
People think that people turn on each other at the drop of dime - but they don't. The first thing desperate people do is forge alliances they might otherwise not consider, and then go looking for a solution to their common problem. They
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You make living in a bunker for two years sound so simple and easy.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not. That's why you have to be...uhh....prepared
Re: (Score:2)
If the global temperature dropped that much crop failures would be the least of peoples' worries. The sudden reappearance of 10km thick glaciers over much of the northern hemisphere would be a little more pressing.
Re: (Score:3)
This will, in fact, increase a prepper's social status since they can a) not be a burden on others in a group b) help others in a group and c) be viewed as intelligent, forward thinking, etc.
"Just wait until the world as we know it ends! Then they'll HAVE to like me! And, my boss, he'll need to listen to ME for a change!"
Re: (Score:2)
Prepping: Buy a big bottle of vitamin C? (Score:2)
Related suggestion: http://vitamincfoundation.org/... [vitamincfoundation.org]
More: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
And in connection with scurvy: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Would be good to have better software tools to try to make sense of all this often-conflicting health information...
E-bola (Score:5, Funny)
E-bola is so 1990. it should get with the times and be called iBola. Then everyone would wait in line to get it.
Re: (Score:1)
No wonder it's not very popular. It only has an installed user base of 1800. Netcraft says E-bola is dieing, and Micheal Dell says if he had it he'd liquidate.
Re:First.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, in this case, hundreds of people have already died, but, sure that's "nothing". Nothing is going to happen in the US, thanks in part to large scale international public health planning of exactly this sort.
Why is everything gotta do with Israel ? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think Israel is evil, okay, that's what you think, but please, this is /., not some Hamas fanboi club
You wanna talk about Ebola, talk about Ebola. Why the need to drag Israel into this discussion ??
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I just want to restate your argument so you can see how stupid it is:
"People die from other causes, therefore people should not concern themselves with this cause, ever"
Re:First.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing will happen that happens every other time there's some outbreak "emergency": Nothing.
That's exactly the goal: ensure that as many people as possible continue to have nothing happen to them, rather than exciting hemorrhagic fever or Quarantine Zone.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I think that it's as insightful as it can be. There are too many humans around. We do see Ebola which is bad and is propagated through contact which means that it's not very contagious. Hand us something that's at least as deadly as Ebola, contagious as the common cold and with an incubation time of several weeks and you have a "winner".
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Ebola has an incubation time of about two to three weeks, after which the symptoms appear. Death follows in two weeks after this, unless the patient survives. The virus can be contagious up to seven weeks after the patient has been cured, depending of the type of contagion.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
You are failing to take into account the steady decline in the global birth rate since the mid 1980s. While we are at 1.1% now, we were over 2% in the 60s and have steadily dropped from 1.6% in 1990 and will go under 1% by 2020 and hit 0.5% by 2050 at the current rates. The current prediction for an extra 2 billion is 30 years time and to reach a peak of 11 billion in the early 22nd century before beginning to drop off.
The driving forces behind 3+ children were lack of basic education, religious beliefs an
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too late, they closed their borders and... there goes Madagascar too.