US Army To Transport American Ebola Victim To Atlanta Hospital From Liberia 409
acidradio (659704) writes American air charter specialist Phoenix Air has been contracted by the U.S. Army to haul an American physician afflicted with Ebola from Liberia to the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. This will be the first 'purposeful' transport of an Ebola victim to the U.S. The patient will be flown in a special Gulfstream III (formerly owned by the Danish Air Force) outfitted for very specialized medical transports such as this. I dunno. I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
theodp (442580) writes with related news In response to the Ebola outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Interim Guidance about Ebola Virus Infection for Airline Flight Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel. "Ebola virus is transmitted by close contact with a person who has symptoms of Ebola," the CDC explains. "Close contact is defined as having cared for or lived with a person with Ebola or having a high likelihood of direct contact with blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Examples of close contact include kissing or embracing, sharing eating or drinking utensils, close conversation (3 feet), physical examination, and any other direct physical contact between people. Close contact does not include walking by a person or briefly sitting across a room from a person."
PANIC! (Score:5, Funny)
The Zombie Apocalypse is nearly upon us! Run ! RUNNNNNN!
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Better move to Madagascar before its too late.
Re:PANIC! (Score:5, Funny)
God. Madagascar always locks their shit down fast. It was so hard killing off all the humans. I tried starting in Madagascar but they'd lock their shit down so fast I wasn't able to spread anywhere else. I only ever had one game where I killed all humans but I hit plenty where everyone except those bastards in Madagascar died.
Re:PANIC! (Score:4, Insightful)
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I start on one of the islands. I prefer iceland since it usually picks up greenland easily.
Re:PANIC! (Score:5, Insightful)
The trick is you want to have high infectivity, low severity and low lethality. This way you're highly infectious but since you don't do anything, no one really bothers. Once you start climbing in severity and lethality, the humans notice.
then just wait until you've infected all humans, then recoup DNA points from infectivity (everyone's infected), and spend it on symptoms that are lethal. Because by then it's too late - once you start killing, it hits everyone and they can't research a cure fast enough before everyone is dead.
(It also shows how the game simulation doesn't reflect real life - because once you've infected everyone, if you switch to become lethal, everyone's disease gets lethal, which never happens. Usually you have to re-infect everyone with the new lethal strain. Then there's the entire population thing - assumes newborns will have the disease as well).
Re:PANIC! (Score:5, Interesting)
Their stated reason for doing it -> "So the patient receives better healthcare."
Their real reason for doing it -> "We received a phone call at 4 AM on Tuesday telling us that Ebola Zaire (the magical strain of D00M) has been hopping between countries in Africa, and that the natives are hiding the infected because their witch doctors told them that Western Medicine is the source of the disease. The people at the CDC (that's us) actually have a plan written down for this particular scenario, and we're following it to the letter.
Long ago, we figured that it was only a matter of time, in a scenario like this, before Ebola Zaire would become airborne; our goal is then to extract several of the infected early on, and learn what we can from them, living and dead. Officially, we will be keeping airports open, and so on, right up until the first infected lands stateside; this is to keep the people from panicking. Once that panic sets in, God help you.
Seeing how it's Ebola Zaire, we are not totally defenseless. Antiviral drugs, such as interferon analogs, may increase the chances of survival; the question of the supply of said drugs be a source of contention.
As always, your fearless leaders will be directing the relief effort from the nearest bunker, with a sign over the entrance "No Admittance.""
considering the virus resivoir... (Score:3)
who can blame me for saying this is batshit insane? and isn't the level-4 biohazard lab at the CDC still closed because they can't read the freakin' instructions?
Vaccine is coming (Score:5, Informative)
CNN had an article on this shortly before it popped up here. In their article, they said that an Ebola vaccine is well underway, with trials expected to begin in humans soon. It's apparently been proven effective in monkeys already. I was a little concerned before I read that, but if they've got a working vaccine, it's really not a big deal.
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Re:Vaccine is coming (Score:5, Insightful)
On the timeline of vaccine research, "available in a year" sounds entirely like it's a solved problem with a pile of paperwork to be done...
Re:Vaccine is coming (Score:5, Informative)
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But the Ebola virus is a bit like the Flu virus, as it mutates when it becomes infectious to humans
It's probably more like the you have to create a new batch for every outbreak, which only occur every 3 to 4 years in small isolated groups, which means it will be expensive to produce.
Unless they go the whole hog and give everyone in the African continent an Ebola jab every few years
Re:Vaccine is coming (Score:5, Informative)
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I heard in another interview on the BBC a day or 2 ago (arghh can't remember exactly when or who it was with)
That the Ebola virus mutates between a harmless and lethal variants every few years (that's why you don't get out brakes of this scale all the time.) and each time it has slightly different incubation time and lethality which makes creating a one-shot vaccine / cure more difficult.
But I hold my hands up and say your guy from the CSC is probably more informed in the subject than my memory of a half li
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Ebola is an RNA virus, very simple, with a very mistake prone polymerase - which is why it tends to mutate to harmless fairly easily. When you have such a short gestation and kill rate, there isn't much room for evolution.
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I actually don't like this kind of race-baiting, but this is a joke:
Experts: Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away [theonion.com]
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It's not particularly race that decides this as much as national origin. American's or Europeans start dieing and real resources will be poured into the research. As long as it's an "African" disease no one really cares in the west enough to pour real resources into a vaccine.
A Africa could be a major world power because of it's resources, that is if every tribal group wasn't trying to kill every other tribal group and every religion wasn't trying to kill every other religion. There is one simple fact of li
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It is not a big deal, but for other reasons.
Sidenote: a vaccine does not heal you if you are already ill, it only powers up your immune system to prevent you catching the illness ...
Tom Clancy thought of it first (Score:3)
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Now that plane just has to disappear and we can all start worrying.
come on we're all thinking it... (Score:2)
"What could possible go wrong...?"
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What a bunch of pansies (Score:4, Informative)
The disease is not particularly communicable. It tends to externalize a lot of bodily fluids, which is why in places with poor sanitary conditions, it spreads pretty quickly. Hospitals which handle patients like these tend not to be considered poor sanitary conditions..
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Re:What a bunch of pansies (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that those are cases in an area where part of the funeral rites include (I believe) washing the body of the deceased by hand.
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It's not the flu or a cold. (Score:5, Informative)
If you could catch Ebola by touching the sweat somebody left behind as they passed through a room, it would have spread a lot farther than it has. I'm pretty sure they'll be testing everybody that comes into contact with this guy for the virus, and even if the tests miss it, the symptoms are not subtle, it being a hemorrhagic fever and all...
Not every virus acts like the flu or cold viruses. Ebola isn't particularly virulent, even if it is pretty nasty if you come down with it. Being able to perform tests on a live patient in a state-of-the-art facility (as opposed to a 3rd-world heap whose "hospitals" are about as sanitary as a mid-grade highway rest stop) is invaluable in researching treatments. Just like the movies, the CDC has on-site facilities specifically designed to treat people with scary diseases we don't want in the population at large; this seems like an excellent use for them.
Re:What a bunch of pansies (Score:4, Interesting)
Then get your paranoia treated and read the relevant wikipedia articles. ... the likelihood to catch it if you don't fuck, kiss, embrace, or otherwise intensive care for a patient is basically ZERO.
Ebola is not the flu nor the black death
Ebola viruses survive on any surface until it either dries out (body fluid containing it evaporates) or by UV radiation.
Do you really believe the USA governments health agency carries an US citizen into the US if it was not perfectly safe? In what paranoia 1984 world do you live?
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Re:What a bunch of pansies (Score:4, Informative)
from: http://www.cbpp.org/files/esta... [cbpp.org]
Today, 99.86 percent of estates owe no estate tax at all, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC).4 Among the 3,780 estates that owe any tax, the “effective” tax rate — that is, the percentage of the estate’s value that is paid in taxes — is 16.6 percent, on average
Only the wealthiest estates in the country pay the tax because it is levied only on the portion of an estate’s value that exceeds a specified exemption level, currently $5.25 million per person (effectively $10.5 million per married couple).
Uneducated panic (Score:5, Informative)
There's a reason animals (and humans) are paranoid about shit we don't understand. From a survival standpoint, it's an advantageous attitude to have. And right now, I'm pretty fucking paranoid about being anywhere near people with Ebola!
Then you need to educate yourself because ebola is NOT even in the top 20 pathogens you should be worried about. Infectious disease doctors worry about diseases like Vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus [wikipedia.org] which is an example of a much more serious threat. You're worrying about a meteor strike when while living in Tornado Alley. Sure there is a tiny risk but it isn't what you should be concerned about. Ebola is scary but there are MUCH scarier and FAR more likely pathogens out there.
Ebola is hard to transmit, easy to contain, evolves slowly and is very unlikely to come anywhere near you in the near future.
Re:What a bunch of pansies (Score:5, Informative)
The incubation period, or the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days. The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms. They are not contagious during the incubation period.
Re:What a bunch of pansies (Score:5, Informative)
The various strains of the flu which become pandemics don't start off as particularly communicable either. They usually develop in other animals (e.g. birds or pigs) and mutate into a form which can infect humans. Even then their outbreak is usually limited to farmers and people who work closely with animals because, like current Ebola strains, they can only be transmitted via direct contact.
They become a pandemic when they mutate into a form which can be transmitted via the air. Not saying this will happen with Ebola. Just saying that just because it's not particularly communicable now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. Ebola is so deadly (50%-90% mortality rate, c.f. 10%-20% for the Spanish Flu) that it inhibits its own spread - killing its victims before they have a chance to mingle with other people and spread the disease. That's also why they haven't transported a patient out of Africa yet - they tend to die before the red tape is cleared. Given the deadly nature of the disease I think it's a good idea to be able to study a case in a modern hospital facility rather than some rural village in Africa. They just need to be super careful handling the case, which it sounds like they are.
There's also something to be said for backing up the doctors who are working on this outbreak with the best possible care we can provide them should they become infected. These folks are casualties on the front lines of an inter-species war. Writing them off and treating them as pariahs if they become infected doesn't exactly bolster their confidence nor encourage other doctors to try to help contain similar outbreaks. Modern epidemiology has become a victim of its own success. People point to fizzled outbreaks like MERS, SARS, the Bird Flu, and criticize our disease control agencies of overreacting because those diseases didn't really spread that far, when the reason those diseases didn't spread that far was likely in large part due to the quick actions of those agencies. We need to be backing these people up. They need to know that should they become casualties, the world is going to provide them with the best possible care to help them recover, not treat them like lepers.
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Herp and derp, doctors in african countries in makeshift hospitals should have access to all sorts of sanitary facilities, just like in the CDC!
Look, I managed to counter your argument without seeking refuge in ad hominem, you pinheaded microphallic butt sniffer!
Remember the facilities (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy had limited equipment, and was treating patients in a facility that would make a highway rest stop look like a model for cleanliness. I expect he was taking every precaution he could, but that's not necessarily a lot.
The CDC has purpose-built facilities designed precisely for treating patients with deadly diseases a lot more communicable than this. This seems like a good use for them.
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The current theory is that Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol contracted Ebola in a scrub room from another staff member who had been infected but wasn't showing enough outward signs of infection [yahoo.com]. hopefully the persons involved in transport will be more carefully screened before the flight.
NOTHING is 100% safe. all people can do is reduce risk as much as possible. that being said, the risk of this patient now spreading ebola to the U.S. is incredibly low.
also, 3.5 stripes is right. there's seriously no need
Ebola Cross with Rabies (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't you mean cross Ebola with the common cold?
Oh right, that would be a terrible, terrible thing.
Nothing to panic over (Score:5, Informative)
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
Ebola is hardly the only scary pathogen handled by the CDC. In fact I believe the CDC doesn't even consider this among the most dangerous of pathogens because of the relative difficulty in transmission [wikipedia.org] which requires direct contact and it evolves relatively slowly apparently. They know very well how to handle this. The main concern is that they actually follow proper procedures. If they do that then there is little to worry about.
If you really want to study ebola to find a cure this is probably a very good idea provided they exercise appropriate caution. You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
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You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
Exactly! Walter from Fringe would have been able to find the cure in about 45 minutes in a makeshift kitchen lab. Then he could have engineered a cure with some old yogurt, a teapot and some of his own blood. All that as long as he could just see the patient. You'd never get him to go to Africa though. That's why they have to bring the patient here!
Going through Customs... (Score:5, Funny)
Is the TSA agent going to give the Ebola patient a pat-down? After all, he might have a bomb in his underwear.
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No, they're just going put him through the millimeter wave scanner and then claim that it cures ebola afterwards.
World War Z (Score:2)
I have both read and seen World War Z, and see no problem with this.
FUD much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
When did Slashdot become home to stupid FUD* spewing dweebs with little or no common sense? The subtitle is "News for Nerds," which would suggest somebody who submits something might have half a clue about what they are talking about (leaving the plebs to pontificate on logical and scientific fallacy or imagine a Beowulf cluster of hot grits ).
I want my Slashdot with nerds filter enabled.
And yes it is an excellent idea, because it gives the CDC a living "test tube" of the actual active Ebola virus, not a sample of infected blood collected, and shipped on ice. Making it ideal for study, and possibly detection of any variant (i.e. mutation) that had not been notice before. Of course, this will likely cost the American doctor his/her life, but such is the risk of fighting an viral outbreak, and the real-world beyond web forums and politicians rambling.
* FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
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I dunno
The editors aren't even trying anymore.
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News for trolls, pageviews that matter.
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Right, because it's absolutely impossible to ship a plane full of CDC scientists and equipment. Far, far, better to ship a live human body full of ebola over and to a densely populated area. What could possibly go wrong?
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So, your argument is that because a bad thing is probably going to happen eventually, we may as well just do it now?
Re-read your first paragraph... (Score:2)
the strain..... (Score:2)
Of COURSE it's a good idea. (Score:3)
Better to study Ebola in a large, properly-equipped research facility where we know exactly who has it (this one guy), and can take appropriate precautions. The precautions needed to keep the infection from spreading in a hospital setting are not particularly elaborate; better than what's available in BFE General Hospital, but nothing fancier than the isolation unit present in just about every major academic medical center in the US.
That's about 1000x better than somebody bringing it over here and spreading it to some other people before somebody recognizes it for what it is, and that being the first chance to run real research on a live patient. This way, we bring over one guy, and the best infectious disease doctors in the world can all be treating him at once in a facility designed for exactly this purpose, with virtually zero chance of this not-particularly-communicable disease going anywhere.
Or, we could have a surprise panic when this shows up in a family somewhere in flyover country, or somebody spreads it to patients in the waiting room of the Metropolis General Hospital ER... yeah, that's LOTS better.
Or not.
Eegads! (Score:2)
I've seen nothing but panic on this Ebola issue.
It's not the end of the world. You have little to worry about, the media is making a stick out of it to get more clicks and higher ratings, that's all.
With diseases like this, the death rate and the incubation time are both critical to how dangerous the disease is. Ebola is deadly, but the incubation rate is very short, and it has little time to spread. Bascially it kills the host long before they can infect too many people. It's prevalent in African due to po
We have assured the Administrator... (Score:3)
SCIENTIST 1
I'm afraid we'll be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedures today, Gordon.
SCIENTIST 2
Yes, but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us. This is the purest sample we've seen yet.
SCIENTIST 1
And potentially the most unstable!
SCIENTIST 2
Oh, if you follow standard insertion procedures, everything will be fine.
SCIENTIST 1
I don't know how you can say that. Although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely, I remain uncomfortable with the---
SCIENTIST 2
Gordon doesn't need to hear this. He's a highly trained professional. We have assured the Administrator that nothing will go wrong.
SCIENTIST 1
Ah yes, you're right. Gordon, we have complete confidence in you.
SCIENTIST 2
Well, go ahead. Let's let him in now.
Don't worry about this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Worry about the folks who flew here from Africa who didn't know they were infected, and are even now having hamburgers at the airport.
Re:Why do you think that (Score:5, Informative)
The Centers for Disease Control is in Atlanta.
It's nice to see reason and logic flying out the window with most of these early posts, by the way. I think I'll invest in pitchfork futures, pronto!
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Amazing how fast humanity flies out the window when fear is involved.
Pure FUD (Score:2)
I don't know anything about Atlanta's medical scene
So why are you trying to panic people over unrelated clumsy decisions made decades ago? The fact that some people stupidly left some pathogens lying around a long time ago has pretty much nothing to do with this case.
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The fact that some people stupidly left some pathogens lying around a long time ago has pretty much nothing to do with this case.
Only if you believe there are no stupid people now, which I frankly am having trouble believing.
Re:Why do you think that (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for the pointless scaremongering (Score:5, Informative)
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
In all likelihood, nothing. The CDC handles copies of pretty much every known pathogen on the planet. It is the premier pathogen research institution on the planet. They've already seen ebola. The only thing novel about this is that they are bringing in a live patient with the disease to a top tier hospital so they can bring the best tools to bear on researching the disease and hopefully treating this guy.
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Unless I'm mistaken, one of the few remaining samples of smallpox is located in Atlanta.
Re:Thanks for the pointless scaremongering (Score:5, Funny)
Unless I'm mistaken, one of the few remaining samples of smallpox is located in Atlanta.
There's some in the storage closet in Maryland. Might be some in Atlanta, too. Who knows. The reason they call it smallpox is because it's so hard to see. Makes it difficult to keep track of.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/07/08/smallpox-discovered-sitting-in-maryland-storage-room/ [washingtonpost.com]
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It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
They know what they're doing
NIMBY at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, CDC knows how to handle this sort of shit.
Yes they do. Nobody's perfect but I trust the CDC to handle this. I've met people that work there. I'm married to a physician that deals with the CDC from time to time and she trusts them. They are very good at their job.
It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
And that is relevant in what way here? Seriously. Explain to me how some leftover vials of a pathogen from decades ago has any relevance to this case beside pointing out the already obvious fact that there is a tiny but non-zero chance someone might do something stupid. That failure mode has precisely zero bearing on this issue. People are not perfect, news at 11.
Cut out the sissy NIMBY scaremongering. There is really, truly nothing to worry about here. It's not funny and it scares people who don't know any better.
Re:NIMBY at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
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My concern is whether the potential risks outweigh the benefit of bringing them to the US. It's not like there is some magical cure awaiting them upon arrival at Emory, there is no cure for Ebola. About the best they can hope for is palliative care, so why not just send a team to West Africa to do the same. Would the care in Atlanta be that much better that it is worth introducing an extremely dangerous pathogen to a large metropolitan area? Yes, I know the CDC already has Ebola in it's freezers in Atlanta, but having a pathogen stored in a BSL4 lab is *much* different than trying to treat an infected patient that is bleeding out in a hospital isolation unit. The opportunity for someone to f*ck up is substantially higher in that situation, so why take the risk?
The transport is less likely for treatment and more likely for research. Or do you think the CDC has top notch research facilities abroad?
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Right. Because the purpose of research is to generate papers.
Kind of like the purpose of falling in love is to get a marriage certificate.
Re:NIMBY at its finest (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Because the purpose of research is to generate papers.
If you like being employed as a researcher it is. Or are you naive enough to think that it has no bearing on this?
Re:The research is to stop an outbreak, not cause (Score:4, Insightful)
or research ... risking an Ebola outbreak in a major US city
The entire point of the research is to learn enough to be able to stop an outbreak in a major US city if one were to start.
Why do you seem to be advocating not doing such research?
I'm all for it, just do it in Africa. Send a team from the CDC with everything they need and enough LN2 to freeze every specimen they could possibly want, then fly that back to the CDC and do the research in a BSL4. If you want to do in vivo research, then use an animal model. Unlike many other pathogens, there are animal models for Ebola infection that are comparatively good. Realistically, bringing two patients who are already infected with Ebola to the US probably isn't going to advance knowledge in that area in such a quantum way as to outweigh the potential risks.
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Your wrong on this. If Ebola has gone airborne (it kills more than 2/3rd of infected and it's got a 21 day incubation) we could be in for the worst pandemic the world has seen since the black death in Europe. The typical response to that statement is an eyeroll and a "they've said that before". Yes they did, and then they did what they always do, massive massive research to understand the virus so they could develop a vaccine before it got to the kill everyone stage. The end goal of bringing these people ho
Actually they ARE working on some treatments. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not like there is some magical cure awaiting them upon arrival at Emory, there is no cure for Ebola. About the best they can hope for is palliative care, so why not just send a team to West Africa to do the same.
Actually there ARE some experimental treatments and antivirals, both general and specific to Ebola, being worked on. At Emory, in particular. (It's their business.)
In fact, according to previous reports, THIS GUY was working on them. And he had ONE dose of one of them WITH him.
Unfortunately, when he and a colleague both started showing symptoms, THIS GUY gave the ONE DOSE to the OTHER GUY.
Has he had other treatments already that might have made him more resistant than J. Random Villager? Haven't heard yet, but it sure wouldn't surprise me.
Bring this partiular guy back to the US, to the CDC facilities, shove him in a best-of-its-class isolab, and give him the best supportive care available (including more experimental stuff)? This might make sense, big time, despite the risks in transit.
Re:Actually they ARE working on some treatments. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually there ARE some experimental treatments and antivirals, both general and specific to Ebola, being worked on. At Emory, in particular. (It's their business.)
In fact, according to previous reports, THIS GUY was working on them. And he had ONE dose of one of them WITH him.
Unfortunately, when he and a colleague both started showing symptoms, THIS GUY gave the ONE DOSE to the OTHER GUY.
Actually, the infected doctor, Kent Brantly, gave the treatment to another missionary, Nancy Writebol, and she's also being evacuated on that plane. http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com] They haven't announced what the treatment is, but it might have been IgG blood serum http://www.livescience.com/471... [livescience.com] separated from the blood of one of the other victims. Or it might have been a new untested adenovirus vaccine, which works (on monkeys) even after they're infected. Or it might have been a monoclonal antibody. Or it might have been an experimental RNA virus. http://www.nature.com/news/ebo... [nature.com] I can't understand why they're keeping it a secret.
These untested treatments are all desperate measures. From what I've read in the New England Journal of Medicine clinical cases, these are the kind of treatments that they use when everything else fails, the patient is dying, they don't know what else to do, and there's nothing to lose.
As I understand it, the odds are against it, but they're the best doctors in the world, and I hope it works.
I also don't understand why they're bringing them to the U.S. The only treatment is supportive care. I think they also have planes that are set up with a transportable ICU, so they should be able to treat them on site.
There is a risk of the virus getting out, no matter how careful they are. They're doing this all for the first time. One problem is that handling a case like this is so complicated, and you only have to make one mistake. An ICU is full of equipment. Since ebola can't be treated, an epidemic spreads until it kills off so many of its victims that there's nobody left to infect, and it burns itself out.
With SARS, a lot of medical workers, particularly nurses, got infected, and they were a large number of the fatalities.
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I don't believe he was working on them. He is a medical missionary, not a researcher, and the experimental drug was flown in after he had become sick. So, no, he's had no special treatment before. Just a regular guy straight out of residency who had gone to Liberia to provide regular medical care and found himself in the middle of an Ebola epidemic.
Why are they flying him in? Good question. Although it's very unlikely that Ebola would start spreading in the US, there may be isolated cases, which means that
It's not NIMBY, it's VECTOR (Score:5, Insightful)
The ebola virus, so far, are not airborne, but it does spread via liquid flow
The ebola virus that CDC and all other research labs study are stored inside sealed containers which are stored inside sealed rooms which are inside sealed buildings, and every single time they are done with their research ***EVERYTHING*** goes into the incinerator, ***EVERY SINGLE THING***, in order to make sure that no virus, not even one , will get the chance to escape
But bringing in the patients striken with ebola will mean importing a human being with all the body fluids that are infected with that virus --- and the bodily fluid, from tears to saliva to sweat to blood to excrement are full of the virus
Unless they seal the patient inside a sealed container and then move that seal container inside the military transport plane, and then moved it out when the plane reached the destination, that military transport plane itself will, one way or another, be left with traces of bodily fluid from the ebola patients
Now, I am not scare mongering, but in the medical world there is a thing called "vector" --- which means, the way the disease spread --- and those traces of bodily fluids inside the big military transport plane may become a vector for spreading that disease
Furthermore, when the patient arrives inside the States, that patient will gonna discharge his/her bodily fluid (pee, sweat, saliva, blood, shit) and how are all those bodily fluid gonna be taken care of ?
Unless that hospital has a specialized toilet where all the thing flushed from that toilet goes through an incinerator / or some kind of total disinfection system before that fluid was discharged out into the sewage system --- which will flow down, eventually, into rivers --- how can anyone be sure that none of the ebola virus is going to escape from the hospital ?
It is not about NIMBY --- it is just common sense
Re:Thanks for the pointless scaremongering (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Yes there is a research interest here (Score:5, Informative)
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Probably yes there is a research interest. Otherwise there would be no reason to choose Atlanta (home of the CDC) of all possible treatment locations. There are plenty of places for treatment but only one place where the experts at the CDC can look at things up close. It's a lot harder to bring the CDC to the patient than the other way around.
Re:Thanks for the pointless scaremongering (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find slightly curious is that they'd bother to transport the patient for a disease that (at present) has no treatment other than supportive therapy to try to keep the symptoms from killing you. The Liberian medical system is not exactly a shining star; but this isn't one of those "Oh, sure, we could cure that; but this hospital doesn't have an endoscopic microsurgery suite and we'd need $250k worth of drugs that you can't even buy here." diseases.
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Because it's the right thing to do. Both of these people are heros, and had the bravery to travel to a remote foreign land and care for a people the majority of us didn't even know exist. They've a level of humanity that's rare in Americans, and we should celebrate that just like we'd protect a wounded soldier. You're not going to die alone in a foreign land. You'll receive the best care possible, and if you die, you'll be around your family when it happens. Because that's the right thing to do. Let people volunteer to care for them. I'm sure there are plenty that would do so. I would.
Re:Thanks for the pointless scaremongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you want your family to be anywhere near you when you're dying of a highly contagious and extremely deadly disease?
It seems illogical to honor your heroes in a way that risks the very cause they are fighting for.
Re: (Score:2)
You realise the different between some freeze dried sample in a jar, in a sealed drawer, in a sealed room, and a living human being infected with it and being transfered all over the place? Right?
More NIMBY (Score:4, Insightful)
You realise the different between some freeze dried sample in a jar, in a sealed drawer, in a sealed room, and a living human being infected with it and being transfered all over the place? Right?
Of course there are differences which is why comparing the two is both stupid and irrelevant. The failure modes have nothing to do with one another. It is well understood how ebola is transmitted and we have very well established containment protocols that we know work well. Ebola is not highly communicative, readily contained and the risks are quite low. The CDC doesn't even consider it among the most dangerous pathogens because it is relatively hard to transmit. They've already had the ebola virus in Atlanta for study. The only thing different here is simply that they have a live patient to handle which is something infections disease doctors deal with every single day.
Re:More NIMBY (Score:5, Insightful)
Sierra Leone's only expert on Ebola died from Ebola a couple of days ago, despite being an expert and therefore following all the safety procedures to the best of his ability.
Re:More NIMBY (Score:5, Informative)
Sierra Leone's only expert on Ebola died from Ebola a couple of days ago, despite being an expert and therefore following all the safety procedures to the best of his ability.
I'm not going to bother confirming what you said but let's assume it is true. Do you have any idea what sort of conditions this person was working under? If it is anything like much of West Africa then you've probably been in highway rest stops that are cleaner than some of the hospitals. Per capita GDP in Sierra Leone is under $1000/year so I'm pretty sure any doctors working there are working without adequate supplies which equals unsafe working conditions. The CDC on the other hand has access to literally every medical technology known to man and the money to utilize them.
So what exactly is your point? That a doctor, heroically working to save people, died due to a lack of adequate medical supplies to do his job properly? Yeah, happens all the time in places like that. It's a tragedy but nothing new or shocking.
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Plus it give the US a chance to gain experience with treating Ebola before it gets here.
The Army is involved because of the bio-warfare group they have. Before anyone freaks the US unilaterally stopped developing bio-warfare agents back in the 1970s
The US does research in defence aka treatment and prevention.
Failure to plan in advance (Score:3)
We've had about 30 years to decide draw up plans for dealing with Ebola. There is the real amount of time available for transparency, not the brief time you claim. That we chose to make no plans today does not mean we automatically agree to bring Ebola infected patients into our population centers, even if someone's life is on the line.
Re:Yes, let's do this. (Score:4, Funny)
As long as no-one shoots down the plane, while it is over some heavily populated location, like, Atlanta.
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[Les Nessman] oooOOooo, there's an idea.
[John]
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As God as my witness, I thought ebola victims could fly!
Re:Yes, let's do this. (Score:4, Informative)
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
They are all, already here. If you think they aren't, you're rather foolish. The difference here is this case got the media's attention. You literally have to get the carriers bodily fluids in your mouth to catch this. That's only happening in areas with sanitation so poor that hardly exist in this country, or if you're in healthcare and taking care of the victims. Which, btw, is what both these people were doing. They're heros, and should be treated as such.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I believe it's Jawjah.
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How much taxpayer money did we spend?
Re:Try, try again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, there are massive differences between Atlanta and Liberia.
Do you believe the following are regular occurrences in Atlanta?
1) Family of someone who died of a known infectious disease choose to hand-wash the corpse anyway, with full knowledge of the cause of death. (Note: Many Africans apparently don't believe the disease exists.)
2) Local residents protest the hospital because they believe that the "story" about the infections disease is a coverup for ritual cannibalism. http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
3) Local residents break in to the isolation ward to remove an infected family member from the hospital