Ebola Outbreak Continues To Expand 170
symbolset writes in with the latest about an ebola outbreak spreading across West Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to monitor the evolution of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. The current epidemic trend of EVD outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia remains serious, with 67 new cases and 19 deaths reported July 15-17, 2014. These include suspect, probable, and laboratory-confirmed cases. The EVD outbreak in Guinea continues to show a declining trend, with no new cases reported during this period. Critical analyses and review of the current outbreak response is being undertaken to inform the process of developing prioritized national operational plans. Effective implementation of the prioritized plans will be vital in reversing the current trend of EVD outbreak, especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Coming to a plane journey (Score:4, Informative)
Coming to a plane journey near you, has that chap near you coughing just clearing his throat or is he seriously ill ?
Is he sweating from the heat or fever ?
Re:Coming to a plane journey (Score:5, Informative)
It also doesn't transmit very easily. So far there are no known cases of it being transmitted in a plane or airport, despite several known Ebola cases having flown on planes. In each case everyone who had flown with them was monitored, but nobody developed the illness.
It helps that it doesn't travel by air or aerosols.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it does transmit fairly easily.
From the WHO:
"Ebola then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids. "
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
no, we don't fondle infected corpses or strangers over here. over there, different story....
Re:Coming to a plane journey (Score:4, Informative)
The CDC's lead researcher of Ebola did a lot of onsite visits in Africa with patients and never contracted the virus, so the CDC's stance is that it is not an air born illness. The team from USAMRIID conducted tests on Ebola in a closed environment with an uninfected control group. The control group was in the same room as the infected group but separated by cages on either side of the room so there was no physical contact between groups. The entire control group got infected, so if you ask USAMRIID, its air born.
The result isn't surprising do to the nature of Ebola. The virus destroys all tissues including lung tissue. Any virus that is exposed to the air in the lungs has the chance of being air born.
Research in 2012 also confirmed this with cross species air born contamination in a controlled environment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wasn't that the incident where they pressure washed the cages of the deceased animals thus flinging infected fluids all over the area?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It helps that it doesn't travel by air or aerosols.
Even if that were true (not going to beat a dead horse there) all it takes is one (unfortunate for us, fortunate for the virus) mutation to throw that out the window.
Re: (Score:2)
That worked out really well with bubonic plague.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Coming to a plane journey (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that people move around... a lot. Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days so that gives an infected person lots of symptom free time to travel to visit his neighboring village or go to the city or get on a plane to visit relatives anywhere in the world.
Re: (Score:3)
All this.
This is why Ebola is dangerous. It doesn't matter how long it takes for someone to go from "sick" to "dead", as once they get sick, they probably won't be traveling. On the other hand, you have three weeks of incubation to traipse around the world and get somewhere quite distant from the original vector, then get sick, and now all of a sudden you have a handful of cases in Toronto followed by a handful of cases three weeks later in Mexico City ... and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
Not these days. You can be infected without symptoms for almost a fucking month, and the damn things remains viable for two! Hell, even if you survive, it's still in you and can still be transmitted via fluid exchange for a week. [who.int]
You go ahead and trust that the mortality rate will stop it. We'll see how well that works out...
Does it have Cold resistance level 2 (Score:3, Funny)
and Antibiotics1 and 2
Re:Does it have Cold resistance level 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a virus, so has pretty good antibiotic resistance.
To follow on from the other comment.
You're faced with people who you've never seen, look quite different than you, and turn up in suits that cover their entire body.
This happens shortly after, or even before the community notices an issue - as they are surveying populations nearby.
Then people start dying, and these people who don't speak your language want to take the bodies of your loved ones, and desecrate them.
Add to this that education in these places is basically non-existant in many cases.
It's no wonder that people can come to the conclusion that the health workers are causing the disease.
Especially given the centuries long history of exploitation. Fake vaccination programs by the CIA to fine OBL haven't helped either.
Re: (Score:2)
The way you describe it actually sounds a lot like an X-Files episode.
Re: (Score:2)
Where do you think the X-Files got it from in the first place?
Re: (Score:2)
Note to people not having a clue of what the parent poster meant: this is a reference to the excellent game Plague Inc. available on Android and possible Apple. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot.
Re: (Score:2)
So we _should_ think of it as evolution in action.
Places with bad education get depopulated.
It would be true absent politics. Some useless people can band together and legislate some useful people out of existence. Then when hardship comes, they'll miss them since know fuck-all.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately the schools ahd hospitals were destroyed by the rebels in the recent civil way. The rebels were a bunch of drug-crazed gangsters using child soldiers to.steal the gold and diamond mines.(The entire mines, not just the produce). It was American money that funded the rebels, and the Europeans that insisted the government "negotiate" with the rebels as if they were a legitimate democratic opposition. This is the equivalent of asking the Italian government to negotiate with the Mafia. Only worse: The rebels knew they would go to hell for crimes against humanity if caught, so they were prepared to go to any extreme to avoid being caught - chopping random limbs off men women and children without mercy in drug-fueled rampages was only a part of it.
In other words, a relatively nasty government. So what are you going to do about it? And why treat them any differently than say Zimbabwe or North Korea?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sure you know how evolution works.
Re: (Score:2)
A lack of education about health care and a lack of access to healthcare for poor people is not a bad habit. Evolution will do nothing to fix that issue. About the most you'll get is a population that might eventually have a higher resistance to Ebola.
fortress Kamchatka (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pandemic reference anyone?
In the game you can get antibiotics resistance to your deadly virus, cold or heat resistance etc...
Pretty sure that is where this one was going...
Re: (Score:2)
I have universal pandemic on my phone, had pandemic before it as well, same game, different name.
Re: (Score:2)
We are in trouble when it buys Airborne and Water transport.
Could be worse... (Score:3)
FNORD!
Re: (Score:2)
They get porous boarders in Chicago all the time. You're not safe unless you're an owner and no closer than Schaumburg.
Boarders.. (Score:2)
Maybe he means the people who board the planes
It is near (Score:5, Funny)
Disease outbreak...check
Pre-WW3 conflicts...check
Justin bieber...check
Ok im ready for Earth obliteration... time to reset society...
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. Just waiting for someone to press the big red button [i-am-bored.com] and end it all.
Re: (Score:2)
I think this [youtube.com] is appropriate.
Risk of mutation to something worse? (Score:2)
I am not a virologist or an epidemiologist (nor do I play one on TV) but I always seem to remember the risk of a larger pandemic from Ebola or other similar severe hemorrhagic fevers was reduced due to the nature of these illnesses having a rapid onset and severity which limits the ability of infected people to be ambulatory and infect other people.
What I wonder and maybe worry about is a long-term low-grade outbreak leading to mutations which increase the amount of time the infected might be able to spread
Re: (Score:2)
Low percentage of asymptomatic cases is also a factor slowing the spread: almost everyone who has an Ebola virus infection develops a serious illness, so there are few (possibly no) asymptomatic carriers who could unwittingly spread it.
Re: (Score:2)
From what I have read about ebola (EVD-- whatever), it has an incubation period of 21 days and its early symptoms are easily confused with the flu. Just about everywhere other than Antarctic research stations is within 21 days travel time of west Africa.
Mecca is going to be an epidemiologist's nightmare this year. Lots of Muslims in west Africa, and some infected Boko Haram nuts might think that they were doing Allah's will in bringing the disease to impure muslims and infidels. Sort of like the way the US
Re: (Score:2)
Well incubation period is somewhat different. Also an issue, but not the same one as asymptomatic carriers. Some viruses have completely asymptomatic carriers, who can harbor it for years without themselves being significantly affected, which makes long-distance spread a lot easier. Ebola doesn't seem to have that.
Although Ebola does have a reservoir in rats, who carry it asymptomatically. No idea what the odds of it spreading via that route are.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a typical course when a disease first crosses to human beings.The good news is that they also tend to become less deadly in the process.
"Head doctor" now also a carrier. (Score:2)
And I just read that the doctor that's treated 100+ of the Ebola victims has been infected as well.
3 other nurses have already succumbed to the disease.
The high mortality rate is probably what scares people the most, despite it actually not being that infective through normal pathways.
Re: (Score:2)
Vaccine in the 2030's? (Score:2)
The story [telegraph.co.uk] I read before this one was about a malaria vaccine that was developed in the early 90's, was known to be effective by '97, and has been awaiting approval since then, while ten million people died from the disease.
Really, though, it was only ten million families who had to lose their loved ones - that's a small price to pay for the paperwork being in order.
Re: (Score:2)
If you had actually read the article you reference, you would see that the delay in malaria vaccine is to to the fact that the many trials have been failures and even this latest version is not very effective for not very much time. The "paperwork" delay in this case is due to the fact that it doesn't work.
Re:Vaccine in the 2030's? (Score:4, Informative)
From your link, it was known to have "great potential" by '97.
Which is NOT the same as "known to be effective".
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Think of it as evolution in action (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I knead to know why you think that.
Re: (Score:2)
*annoyed grunt*
Re:Think of it as evolution in action (Score:4, Funny)
Speaking of bread in the gene pool, let's all hope that your hot dog never finds a hot dog bun.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover, you sound like you consider yourself somehow superior to the people who are dying of the disease, though you are undoubtedly too cowardly to actually come out and say it even as AC. You're protected by geography and the fact that the virus doesn't appear to have gotten into a major international airport. At the momen
Re:World War Z (Score:4, Interesting)
Except people who get viruses die when they are shot. You don't even have to shoot them in the head. And real people don't cooperate in a herd like manner to climb walls even when they're NOT infected with some disease.
And real viruses have incubation periods long enough that you don't have scenarios where if Brad Pitt doesn't lop your arm off 5 seconds after your hand is bitten you instantly turn into a bloodthirsty rage zombie with a 100% infection rate when you bite someone else.
Could an ebola outbreak be bad? Sure, but don't just make shit up.
Re: (Score:2)
The nice thing about ebola is it's not airborne, you need to actually touch someone's fluids to get ebola. So, it's completely avoidable, as opposed to airborne pathogens.
Re: (Score:2)
However there are no reports that this strain is airborne, or at least the governments of the world are not letting that information out in fear of all the problems that would bring........
Re: (Score:2)
It was also not infectious to people. And some even think the airborne aspect as suspect given the locales and condition of those same locales, shit flinging moneys can transfer things through air but that isn't normally called airborne. ;)
Given the extremely few virus particles needed that mechanism could even explain the transfer between rooms, infected particulate can transfer surprisingly far.
Note that this assumes the information of the air circulation system being unfiltered and that doors between roo
Re: (Score:2)
Can't really avoid it since you can get it from touching surfaces contaminated with the virus. Think of an airplane seat or a public shop or any public place. You can wall yourself up at home but what happens when you run out of food?
Re: (Score:2)
Right. Just like bubonic plague isn't airborne--- until it mutates into pneumonic plague.
Ebola is a rapidly changing virus. Rather like the flu in that respects. That its initial symptoms are indistinguishable from the flu yet the victim is already contagious is a nasty touch.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
One of their descendents still roams free... [wired.com]
Re: (Score:2)
So many of them would be Viriii ?
Re: (Score:3)
Viri, the plural of vir (man), means 'men'.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a scenario that rivals the old cold war for scary.
Except the cold war had a real possibility of MAD. Some sort of zombie rage Ebola strain is a figment of your imagination.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Who was the sad f*ck who decided to make up a confusing three letter acronym for Ebola?
But "ebola" has three syllables and "EVD" only has three.
Re:Effective communication (Score:4, Informative)
There are five viruses that cause EVD, only one of which is actually called "ebola".
Re: (Score:3)
Then, posted not long ago, an update: 45 new cases and 28 deaths from July 18-20 [infectionc...ltoday.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to be working just fine...
Syphilis does better, as a disease, than Ebola for the same reasons you win at Pandemic-type games - the slow progression, the low-profile.
Ebola doesn't spread nearly as much, because it's non-airborne and rapidly fatal to a large number of people who contract it. This is why it stays confined to the butt-end of civilization.
Syphilis does more harm overall because it has numbers in it's favour.
People tend to focus more on Ebola because of the high mortaility rate. It has a co
Re: (Score:2)
Ebola has an incubation period of 21 days which is plenty of time for symptom free people to travel anywhere in the world.
Re: (Score:2)
"A virus with high mortaility and rapid spread will rapidly kill all susceptible individuals within it's catchment area, so it's likely that such things have never really gotten off the evolutionary drawing board."
Generally speaking I agree, but only when the virus is lethal to all susceptible individuals.
If the virus is non-lethal to some susceptible individuals then those individuals could become carriers (a reservoir where the virus can continue reproduce but does not kill its host). Carriers are how a virus can have a high mortaility and rapid spread without becoming an evolutionary dead-end.
In the case of Ebola I have heard that it is suspected that fruit bats are carriers. If it is true that fruit bats are
Re: (Score:2)
syphilis kills and cripples more people annually [...] "What's all the hubbub, bub?"
compare slow progressing sexually treatable disease with ~80% mortality fast bleed-out disaster? get back in the womb, critter your brain is not fully developed yet
Or their mother's basement, whichever is more convenient....
Re: (Score:2)
get back in the womb, critter your brain is not fully developed yet
Or their mother's basement, whichever is more convenient....
Mother's basement as a convenient replacement for the womb. There's a joke in there somewhere...
Re: (Score:2)
compare slow progressing sexually treatable disease
Do, go on ...
Re: (Score:2)
It's exactly as many syllables as "ebola" but carries more information, what's not to like?
Re: (Score:2)
Now I can understand wanting to abbreviate "ebola hemorrhagic fever", which is way more descriptive.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a technical term, so in its actual context it's very clear. As for lay accounts, they will generally explain what it means.
Re: (Score:2)
It's exactly as many syllables as "ebola" but carries more information, what's not to like?
Indeed, it carries MUCH more precision than just "Ebola", which can mean any of the following:
"Ebola River" is a tributary to the Congo River.
"Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever" was the name of a disease first discovered in people living in the remote Ebola River watershed.
"Ebola Virus" (abbrev. "EBOV") is the infectious agent that causes "Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever"
"Ebolavirus" is the taxonomic genus to which the "Ebola virus" belongs.
"Ebola Virus Disease (abbrev. "EVD") is now the more common name for Ebola Hemorrhagi
Re: (Score:2)
I worked in public health informatics for many years, and it's a longstanding tradition to use three letter codes. I think this is the legacy of old systems which provided three or four character fields for codes, but it certainly speeds things along when you're keying data into a spreadsheet.
The tradition isn't formalized, and so it's application is somewhat irregular, but it's important in this case to realize that public health surveillance makes a strong distinction between a *disease* (a disorder of s
Re:The only solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
From your sarcasm, I'm going to assume that you'd rather that AIDS was characterised as a disease of gay people and minorities who should therefore be ostracised, it wasn't spoken about, and where its very existence was denied?
That's what happened in the 1980s and it caused the fucking problem in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Statistically, AIDS is mostly a disease of gay people and minorities
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the US government and the CDC disagrees with you http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basic... [aids.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
"MSM [gay males] accounted for 52% of all people living with HIV infection in 2009, the most recent year these data are available"[snip]"and 63% of all new infections"
So it isn't hard to extrapolate and guess that some date before 2009, the "gay male" segment was below half (as now, it's almost exactly half), but the gay male segment grew faster than others recently to overtake it.
The last time I had looked, straight people still lead the gay-male category, but it has been a few years. An
Re: (Score:2)
my statement was "gays and minorities", for example in the year 2000 that was over 60% of cases, most being in one or both groups
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well in his defense he at least isn't posting as an AC...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? They would just close their borders and contain it from spreading.
Re: (Score:2)
how ironic, considering it is certain religious practices that have been contributing to the spread of this disease.
Re: (Score:2)
Action based on ignorance has been the bane of making people healthy for the entire history of medical science.
Usually religious.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
yes because burning isn't a disinfectant or anything. ebola ain't super contagious.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why the second terrorist group to try this technique will probably use the more difficult but effective technique of infecting the shrapnel rods that a BUK explosion scatters through the nearby target, including the bodies of any humans. If this had happened in MH17 it would have, given the looting that occurred after the crash, been a very efficient way of slaughtering the whole Ukrainian separatist army and infecting any number of Russian "advisers."
Re: (Score:2)
There are piles of ways to deliver things that aren't "traditional".
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying it would work. I'm saying that unusual low-tech solutions can have unexpected results, and I wouldn't want to bet everyone's