Ghana Reports First Cases of Deadly Ebola-like Marburg Virus (theguardian.com) 45
Two cases of the deadly Marburg virus have been identified in Ghana, the first time the Ebola-like disease has been found in the west African nation. From a report: Earlier in the month, blood samples taken from two people in the southern Ashanti region suggested they had the Marburg virus. The samples were sent to the Pasteur Institute in Senegal, which confirmed the diagnosis, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said. "This is the first time Ghana has confirmed Marburg virus disease," said the GHS head, Patrick Kuma-Aboagye. No treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg, which is almost as deadly as Ebola. Its symptoms include high fever as well as internal and external bleeding. Ninety-eight people identified as contact cases were under quarantine, the GHS statement said, noting that no other cases of Marburg had yet been detected in Ghana. The World Health Organization declared Ghana's first outbreak. "Health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a headstart preparing for a possible outbreak," said the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti.
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It's either fruit bats or unprotected sex that transfers this one. Easy to avoid.
Pffft, it's Ghana (Score:2)
Who cares, hey, they neither manufacture our crap nor do they buy our crap, it's not like we care that a couple thousand people croak.
As long as this doesn't affect us, don't expect us to do anything. Of course, as soon as it does, everyone will lament how we didn't do something back when we could have avoided the disaster to hit home...
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It doesn't mean these are substantive efforts, just that external organizations do exist to monitor and "help" with major outbreaks.
Why is it...? (Score:2)
You don't see horrible, ebola like diseases coming out of the blue from areas say, like Reno, Nevada, or the south side of Paris, France....
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Re:Why is it...? (Score:4, Informative)
Warm termperatures and a diverse ecosystem [navytimes.com]. Without the cold temperatures to tamp down growth, infectous diseases can have a field day. When combined with people moving among animals carrying the diseases or walking through places where the diseases exist, infection rates will soar.
Also, have you seen how barren Reno is? I don't mean the town itself, I mean it's environment. There's not much vegetation or animal life for viruses to grow in. Without those incubators, you don't get the good stuff.
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Marburg has no specific treatment better than symptomatic support (cool fevered bodies ; hydrate sweating bodies ; feed and ventilate). Regardless of how good your health care system (or how high the bills), it doesn't get significantly better than that.
That was certainly an issue in the 2013-4-5 Ebola outbreak, but I don't know if it's an issue in M
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Why is it that the horrible diseases seem to come from these areas?
Warm termperatures and a diverse ecosystem [navytimes.com]. Without the cold temperatures to tamp down growth, infectous diseases can have a field day. When combined with people moving among animals carrying the diseases or walking through places where the diseases exist, infection rates will soar.
Also, have you seen how barren Reno is? I don't mean the town itself, I mean it's environment. There's not much vegetation or animal life for viruses to grow in. Without those incubators, you don't get the good stuff.
I think it's more complicated than that.
Look back to the discovery of the New World when all the horrible diseases came from Europe (smallpox). As far as I know the only major disease to come from the New World was Syphilis. If warm diverse ecosystems are the issue then one might have expected the discovery of the Amazon to have unleashed a massive pile of nasty. But the only scary one from there seems to have been Zika.
Instead, the current pattern seems to be hemorrhagic fevers from Central Africa, respira
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As long as it's diseases where you start bleeding out every orifice in a matter of hours, I'm not too worried - that tends to get noticed and stopped quickly.
it's when you get a disease that bides its time with a long contagious period without symptoms that it's really worrying.
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and here i assumed most everyone on this site would have passed high school biology.
"why is there more diverse abundance of life in the tropics than the desert" is a question for 4th graders
Re: Why is it...? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Perhaps it has something to do with humans are native to Africa, with all extant members of Homininae (excluding humans) are still only found in Africa and almost all extinct Homininae were also limited to Africa.
Seems like a good setup for zoonotic diseases.
Although the 1918 flu may have originate
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Actually, the introduction of a new domesticated animal to a population is a better setup. Hence (probably) measles probably coming in with the domestication of cattle in (eastern) Europe about 8000 years ago, a variety of things coming in with pigs and sheep in the Levant a thousand years before that.
At least there's never been a (Score:2)
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The strategy to avoiding a pandemic is to contain it when it hasn't spread everywhere. We have probably 1 of these every year, but we contain them... for ignorant and political reasons, we skipped that part with Covid-19. Look where it got us
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We have probably 1 of these every year, but we contain them... for ignorant and political reasons, we skipped that part with Covid-19. Look where it got us
What response would have completely eliminated covid?
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Re: Quick! Everybody! Masks back on!! (Score:2)
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Quick! Everybody! Masks back on!!
Actually... if we did that every time an airborne virus broke out, we would be in really good shape as a population.
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The cure is worse? Is wearing a surgical mask that much of a big deal that it's better to choose death?
We are talking about ebola(-like) here.
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I live in a part of the world where by law, I have to still wear a mask in every shop I go in, and hotel I stay at, or any inside situation except for when you are eating or drinking. Even then, you have to put a mask on if you get up from your table. It sucks.
But it also clearly works. At least we haven't been dropping like flies here - despite the country having one of the world's major transport hubs and exposed to a lot of tourists from all over the world, it's also had one of the lowest death rates f
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It sucks. But it also clearly works. At least we haven't been dropping like flies here.
True story: When I was a child, the telephone repair person parked his van in front of our house. As he got out, he placed an orange road cone by the rear bumper.
"Why did you put the cone there?", I asked.
"To keep the elephants away!", he said.
"But I don't see any elephants."
"Then it must be working.", he replied.
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Actually... if we did that every time an airborne virus broke out
Resulting in airborne viruses that select for mask bypass.
, we would be in really good shape as a population.
I doubt it.
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, we would be in really good shape as a population.
I doubt it.
You doubt what [youtube.com], exactly? That masks work?
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You doubt what, exactly?
I doubt that "we would be in really good shape as a population" if everyone wore masks.
I suspect all that will happen is viruses end up mutating to proliferate more in response to selection pressures associated with masks.
That masks work?
Masks most certainly work. They stop xx percentage of particles of nn size.
Lead bathing suits also work. They block xx percentage of n radiation of y energy.
If the question is does a lead bathing suit protect you from certain death when free diving down to the pretty blue lights at the b
And like Ebola... (Score:2)
...Marburg gives infected that incredible urge to go to the airport and book a middle-seat to anywhere.