Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference.
Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops.
Thank You all for you participation.
I suspect that that the English spoken in Liberia is not quite the same as spoken here.
Most baffling of all:
pproximately 300 infected patients have survived Ebola treatment in Liberia since the outbreak here from March to September, Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, Tolbert Nyenswah, has announced.
Since
From latest CDC page
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/index.html?mobile=nocontent
Liberia
Total Case Count: 2710
Total Deaths: 1459
Laboratory Confirmed Cases: 812
They’re using serious opiates and North Korean calculators. That’s the only explanation.
I was scratching my head at that 300-survivor claim too, but thought it might be 300 from Lofa, not 300 in the entire country. Hard to say based on the article.
The hair on my arm was standing on end.
Isn't this what a lot of people, even on this very forum have been talking about?? Warning about? This makes so much sense. The way this thing is spreading out of control, even to people who claim no direct contact to infected persons, not to mention all the infections of the HCWs, fully covered in PPE.
This from the article:
The potential for transmission via inhalation of aerosols, therefore, cannot be ruled out by the observed risk factors or our knowledge of the infection process. Many body fluids, such as vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva, are capable of creating inhalable aerosol particles in the immediate vicinity of an infected person. Cough was identified among some cases in a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo,11 and coughs are known to emit viruses in respirable particles.17 The act of vomiting produces an aerosol and has been implicated in airborne transmission of gastrointestinal viruses.18,19 Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen-laden aerosol that disperses in the air.20-22
How many public restrooms have lids on the toilets? Most of the commercial ones have such powerful flushes, they spray everywhere and leave water drops on the seat. In the case of an Ebola-infected person using a public restroom? Welcome to- yet another- nightmare.
Lord have mercy!
(Paging Mr. Caribbean Medical School...)
Interesting. The video I watched last night to find the exchange was about 3 1/2 hours long. They probably cut out all the after chatter and photo-taking.
Well, I found that point of the panel on this link.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?321494-1/hearing-ebola-outbreak-west-africa
It is at the 02:41:30 mark.
So you think people with third world sanitation issues would somehow suddenly conform to modern sanitation if one or more did get Ebola? I disagree and think if anyone from those type of communities gets ill it will spread fast among them. Recently the CDC was chasing and had to arrest an illegal that fled from treatment for TB. I am sure if it was Ebola they would change their whole attitude and lifestyle. Right?
You seem to have little knowledge of how illegals migrate North. They travel in groups, not all with coyotes and are often in close quarters in vehicles, trains, buses, shelters, etc. If one gets sick in a group with a coyote they are usually abandoned but often one will stay to help a sick person. That person would continue on if they realized they could not help. Think of a relay situation, and remember they all think of our medical care as magical so all that became ill would become determined to get here for medical help instead of going to the closest medical facility.
Illegals from Africa are indeed found here every year, and do travel in groups with Chinese, Mexicans, and those from Central America. The person that left Africa with Ebola would certainly not be the same person that arrived at the border with it, but due to conditions of their travel I would bet more would be getting it along the way.
I do believe we are at far greater risk of Ebola arriving by airplane or ship, but to think it is impossible for it to come in the Southern border is pretty naive.
Yes indeed. Third world living conditions right here in this developed country of ours. I know it is hard to believe if one hasn’t seen it, but is true.
Do you really think sanitation issues are better in any inner city place where homeless gather in numbers? How about in drug houses? People have to go somewhere and if they don’t have a place to go- guess what? Every large city has pockets of third world sanitation. If Ebola infects someone that lives that way in an area where others live that way within a large city- I suspect it could be an issue.
There you go. That is pretty clear to me.
> approximately 300 infected patients have survived
> Total Case Count: 2710
> Total Deaths: 1459
I seem to recall reading that the discrepancy can arise when people show up outside the gate. Since the centers are overloaded, they (as I recall) will do a test on those outside the gate, even before room has opened up inside. Some people when seeing the crowds, turn around and leave before the test results are developed. If a person leaves and their test came up positive, they will show up in the case count but not in the death count.
If this understanding is correct, it might imply that about 1000 people with Ebola turned around and left the overcrowded containment areas before receiving treatment. We can only speculate on how many eventually died.
...or maybe my understanding is totally wrong.
Reuters: Eight bodies found after attack on Guinea Ebola education teamEight bodies, including those of three journalists, were found after an attack on a team trying to educate locals on the risks of the Ebola virus in a remote area of southeastern Guinea, a government spokesman said on Thursday.
"The eight bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit," Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters by telephone in Conakry.
(snip)
Fofana said the team that included local administrators, two medical officers, a preacher and three accompanying journalists, was attacked by a hostile stone-throwing crowd from the village when they tried to inform people about Ebola.
This is what our military is walking into. What are the odds that Obama's ROE won't allow them to protect themselves from these savages? High IMO.
Thanks for the ping.
Thanks, Black Agnes!
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/09/18/Alarm-in-Venezuela-as-Mysterious-Virus-Kills-Ten
“Venezuelan Government Dismisses Existence of Deadly Illness”
They will probably get the idea that throwing bodily fluids/excrement on aid workers and soldiers drives them off at some point...
In my personal experience, it is quite possible to find virus by RT-PCR that simply cannot be confirmed by plaque assay. All RT-PCR does is tell you that large enough fragments of viral RNA exist to give a positive result on the PCR test. It tells you nothing about virus viability.
The study described in that J. Inf. Disease article was less-than-ideal for a number of reasons. Were I a reviewer of that paper, and the virus anything but Ebola, I would not have recommended its publication. Probably whoever reviewed it thought the same.
In a previous post (number 2118) you wrote:
In order for Ebola to become airborne, it would have to 1) infect cells in the upper respiratory system, in the bronchia and possibly alveoli, and 2) be resistant to destruction by drying.
Ebola infects dendritic cells, which are numerous in the respiratory tract.
The airborne viruses I know all infect ciliated epithelial cells in the upper respiratory tract. The last time I checked, dendritic cells are not ciliated. The virus would also have to change its physical structure in order to become airborne, to make it resistant to drying. Right now, the virus spreads just fine through infected fluids and possibly droplet transmission--there is no selective pressure for it to change mode of transmission.
I do not know of any Ebola researchers who think that Ebola is airborne, or that it spreads through means other than close contact or proximity with infected persons. If you can provide examples of actual research papers, peer-reviewed and indexed in PubMed, that definitively demonstrate true airborne (NOT droplet, NOT fomite) transmission of Ebola from a human--or even non-human primate--please post the reference(s). Otherwise, quit trying to find ways to make the evidence fit your desire for Ebola to be airborne. It is not, and no knowledgeable person has ever said otherwise.
FYI, here is a nice article from Scientific American that explains why Ebola is not airborne and is not likely to become airborne. It is written for consumption by laypeople, and seems to avoid the dense language that scientists such as myself often use.
The next time influenza sweeps around the northern hemisphere, seemingly simultaneously across the whole hemisphere, you might want to get down on your knees and thank God that Ebola is not airborne. Influenza season is coming, and there is nothing we can do to stop its spread.
Pigs are not humans, and the pathology of infectious diseases is different in pigs versus in humans. Pigs get a respiratory illness from Ebola, but primates do not.
I believe that I have pointed out in other posts that there are severe limitations in published studies on the survivability of Ebola virus in the environment. The fact is that no one has done any systematic study of viability of virus in fomites, and any evidence of virus in non-blood derived fluids is inconclusive.
BTW, before going to all the trouble of quoting scientific papers (especially long passages from them), keep in mind that I have most likely already read those papers. Just in case I haven't seen the paper, feel free to post a link to the PubMed citation.
I'm a PhD trained medical researcher. I know how samples are aerosolized by many common laboratory procedures. I remember when I used to centrifuge 35-S labeled samples, I gave up trying to keep them from aerosolizing--no matter what I did, I had to budget an hour or so to clean the radioactivity off the entire interior of the centrifuge every time I did that experiment. And I used sealed tubes and a lid on the rotor.
When I speak of Ebola not being an airborne virus, I am speaking strictly of the natural processes that viruses use to become airborne from the upper respiratory passages of an infected patient. This is the kind of transmission that makes the difference between Ebola remaining a regional outbreak, or its jumping to affect the whole world. If it could spread through natural aerosol routes, it would be all over the world by now.
The aerosols that occur as a result of, for instance, popping open an Eppendorf centrifuge tube, typically occur in the [BSL-4] laboratory environment, which is disinfected on a regular basis and is not open to the outside air. Certain procedures done with patients also can create aerosols--again, these happen in a controlled environment, and are not a consideration for disease transmission outside of the health-care setting.
I guess you missed the part where I said I've already read that paper (several times, in fact). Furthermore, despite your insistence that that paper was about aerosols, it was not.
Of course I quoted Scientific American to you. I will be honest--your level of understanding of the subject that you have repeatedly communicated tells me very strongly that you do not have a PhD, nor do you have the scientific understanding that a PhD trained scientist gains from years of both reading papers and doing research in the lab. You have not demonstrated that you know anything about the basic structure of cells, how viruses replicate, shed, and spread, etc. So I choose a source written at what I perceive is your level of understanding. Don't worry--I read it myself to make sure the information is accurate; I will never link to an article that is factually inaccurate.
The reason I am so fixated on the minute details of transmission is because only an accurate understanding of transmission characteristics allows for the proper infection control measures to be implemented. This outbreak is not going to be stopped by people becoming hysterical over supposed aerosol transmission--it will be stopped by understanding what DOES spread the virus, and taking steps to stop those chains of transmission.
Whom to believe: an AP reporter, a politician, a political appointee or a research virologist? I don't find that a difficult choice.
Where do you think the reporter, politician, and political appointee get their information? They get that information from the people who actually do the research--from people whose education, training, and experience is similar to mine. If they cannot relay the information accurately, it is because they don't have the educational background to really understand what the researchers are trying to tell them.
Airborne transmissibility by an Ebola sufferer's EXhalation of tiny particles originating in the lungs is not the same as airborne transmissibility via a new victim's INhalation of larger particles originating in an existing victim's esophagus and trachea.
The CIDRAP study linked in Black Agne's post No. 2160 properly states that the respective ranges of tiny Ebola-laden particles emitted from the lungs and larger particles originating in the esophagus and trachea form a continuum rather than a barrier. The larger particles mostly fall out of the air due to gravity about three feet from the emitting victim, but not all do. Some waft around for a fair distance, and can contaminate inert surfaces (fomites). Smaller particles hang around for longer and can go farther, which makes them really, really dangerous.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.