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 just watched two individual hours on Ebola, on the Discovery Fitness channel.
It was a couple fine shows, I was actually unable to change the channel. Saw some of what the challenge is, there.
Not much news, I did learn the two American patients are doing well.
I was under the impression that you were talking about fields in CA (or in some part of the US, anyway). The chance that someone from Africa would be able to migrate out of Africa and all the way across the country of Mexico within the 21 day incubation period of Ebola is just about nil. A few weeks ago, Rush said that it takes about 45 days to traverse to our border... no one with Ebola can survive that long.
I am also quite aware that the coyotes have no use for those who cannot keep up with the others during those trips across our border. People don't even have to be sick--if they are just small and weak, the coyotes will abandon them. From everything I've heard, a LOT of bodies are recovered near those border areas.
While there are plenty of noxious diseases that can cross our southern border, Ebola isn't one of them.
The person that leaves Africa infected with Ebola will not infect anyone else before they die? Why the idea that one person has to bring Ebola from Africa all the way to the US? I was under the impression that Ebola spreads person to person. Ever watch a relay race?
Working a harvest is VERY hot and thirsty work.
Trust me, it works--so long as you don't doze off in the middle of posting something...
They aren’t infectious until they are symptomatic, and the level of infectiousness increases as the disease progresses. Ebola, when it hits, hits hard, so the person would likely be abandoned pretty quickly. Assuming the worst-case scenario, that they would spread it to others in the group before they are abandoned—the most likely outcome would be that the whole group dies.
The incubation period is from 2-21 days, with the average around 8. With a 45 day journey to our border, someone with Ebola isn’t going to make it.
All it needs are a few transfers, or connecting flights. It doesn't have to arrive in the same person it left in.
Patrick Sawyer. Nobody was kissing him and yet look at how many people he infected once he landed in Nigeria.....who knows how many before that.
I think that if someone became symptomatic during a flight from an affected country, they would not leave the airport outside of an ambulance. And then they would get better medical care than they could have expected back in Africa, and have a better chance of survival.
I question whether someone seeking to enter the US illegally would have the means to buy an airplane ticket.
I just realized that you were responding to post 2147. I thought you were responding to post 2178. My mistake.
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.
Ah, the insult dodge. It won't work. Please provide a citation to support your assertion that Ebola cannot infect ciliated epithelial cells.
Odd, you've yet to dispute anything I've written or posted regarding the viral structure, function, etc. If I'm so woefully ignorant surely you can provide examples of my errors. Our first disagreement arose from my assertion that the epidemiological definition of "airborne" differs significantly from the general public's definition and the denial of any possibility of aerosol and droplet vectors is misleading the public, however well-intentioned or technically accurate.
If you are who you say you are (I have no way of verifying nor do I expect you to post personal information to do so), I'm not surprised that you cannot see outside your box to how the general public interprets what is coming out of the CDC/WHO/et al. Every scientist I've worked with has the same problem. That's why they hire people like me. They have the self-awareness to recognize their own blind spots and most aren't so supercilious they believe that anyone without their CV is automatically stupid.
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.
Proven infection control measures aren't working. Some of that is due to the ignorance of the population, some due to the population densities of the infected areas, some due to the refusal to implement demonstrably effective yet politically unpopular controls like quarantines, some due to the unknowns regarding this particular pathogen. It is those unknowns that concern me and have since the beginning. There's nothing "hysterical" in my posts because I'm not hysterical. Concerned? Absolutely. I have no reason to believe that Ebola cannot spread throughout the world in very little time. In fact I have every reason to think it will. I vividly recall in the early days of HIV/AIDS claims by many authorities that GRID could not become a serious health issue in "developed countries." I recall the assertions that it was contained in the homosexual communities by definition so no quarantine was necessary. Of course the meme inverted to "everyone is at risk" once history demonstrated the errors of the early meme and the political element hit full stride. I see the same phenomenon occurring now. Given the specifics of the pathogen and the fact that one can be infected with Ebola without engaging in very specific sexual/drug activities, the recurring meme gives me pause.
As I wrote earlier, in a year we will have loads of data regarding transmission vectors. I think we'll see far easier H2H transmission than current dogma admits. Time will tell.
In an earlier post you defended the deflections performed by the scientists at the Congressional hearing by asserting that much is unknown about this virus and its transmission vectors, therefore the scientists couldn't provide the requested information and hence provided what little they could without admitting they just don't know. You then turn around and insist that you know enough to assure the world that only direct physical contact with blood/vomit/etc. will result in H2H Ebola viral transfer (though to give credit where due you did express some concern about the persistence of the virus in semen.) Which is it? Since you present yourself as the authority on the subject, please educate the rest of us on all possible transmission vectors. Perhaps you should offer to update the Congress since they didn't get the information regarding fomites from the scientists present.
Again, please provide a cite for your claim that Ebola cannot infect ciliated epithelial cells. Thanks in advance.
http://www.msf.org/article/liberia-boy-who-tricked-ebola
Excerpt:
When Mamadee was firstly admitted on 15 August, he tested negative for Ebola and was discharged. Staying overnight in the guesthouse as his village Sarkonedu was too far to travel to, he developed some signs and was readmitted the next day. He was displaying symptoms of nausea, fever, muscle pain, intense fatigue, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.
“He was a clear Ebola patient,” says Dr. Roberta Petrucci. “Only the jaundice made us doubt.” The doctors treated him with multivitamins, paracetamol, oral rehydration solution, antibiotics and with antimalarial pills, as Mamadee had also tested positive for malaria.
On 20 August, the second Ebola test result returned and it was as expected – positive. The only thing that didn’t fit into the picture was that young Mamadee in the meantime was already feeling good and running around.
“We couldn’t believe it,” says Dr. Petrucci. “We thought it must have been a mistake.” When the medical staff took another blood test a few days later, they realised that there had been no mistake. Mamadee still tested positive.
“The lab normally doesn’t make mistakes,” Dr. Petrucci continued. “And especially twice in a row with the same patient.” So, even though Mamadee was everything but symptomatic, he could theoretically infect others. “We had no other choice other than to keep him in the CMC as the result was still positive,” she says.
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Well, so much for being too weak to go out and infect a bunch of people...
Sounds interesting. DO you have a link by any chance?
These “definitional issues” are of critical importance and absolutely worth fighting over.
The “droplet versus aerosol barrier” paradigm is obsolete with an ID50/LD50 at 10 viral particle transmission disease.
And if that medical paradigm is obsolete, so by extension is the idea of triage or separate PPE levels for separate hospital wards in cases of a suspected wide spread Ebola outbreak.
Everyone in the medical system dealing directly with the public will have to be in full BHL-4 PPE protocols 100% of the time with BHL-4 Terminal clean protocols that includes a documented positive chain of control from collection to cremation disposal of all PPE and personal clothing, hospital linens, other supplies, and especially bodies.
Otherwise we will see the public health-care system collapse from too many health care worker (HCW) Ebola casualties and ensuing HCW absenteeism. Followed by the public’s avoidance of the medical system as a proven place to get Ebola.
The “Droplet” versus “aerosol” definition is of critical importance to CDC/WHO/NIH messaging and preparations for Ebola here in America.
The public health authorities don't want to change to the new standards that the CIDRAP study represent for all the fear uncertainty and doubt it will raise with the public given the Ebola messaging they have used to control the public to date.
The “outside the frame of reference” reactions by the CDC/WHO/NIH bureaucracies to the ID50/LD50 at 10 viral particle transmission fomite threat is very much a part of that definitional issue fight.
I too watched that last night. What struck me was the interview with Brantly in which he stated they had seen 45 patients at one point.
Only one of which had survived. One. That’s it.
VOA 9/19/14 Guinea Halts Part of Ebola Outreach After 7 Murdered CONAKRY, GUINEAA septic tank is a "mass grave?"The Guinean government said it is stopping Ebola education activities in the country’s southeast after seven missing health workers and journalists were murdered there this week. Two other workers remain missing.
(snip)
In Guinea’s southeastern town of Wome, the bodies of four Ebola campaigners and three local journalists traveling with them were discovered Thursday in a mass grave. They had been missing since angry residents attacked their convoy Tuesday.
The victims were traveling with a government delegation to Wome to raise awareness on Ebola.
Villagers attacked the convoy with stones and weapons and destroyed six vehicles. Other members of the delegation were beaten but managed to escape.
(snip)
Outreach activities have become “impossible” in the southeast, said Dr. Fanta Kabba, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health. She said efforts there will now focus just on treating the sick.
(snip)
This is third major attack on health workers in southeastern Guinea since the regional outbreak began there early this year.
Minister of Communication Alucine Makanera, who was in Wome, told VOA the murdered workers had marks indicating they were attacked with machetes and stones.
Infected person becomes symptomatic on the trip, infects others, dies or is left behind. Figure that is the end of week 1.
Newly infected people keep up for up to two weeks, infecting the third wave, so to speak, as the group picks up members.
Those who sicken are left behind.
The newly infected continue on, the coyote picks up more people, lather rinse, repeat.
It isn't a question of whether the initial infected person makes it across, but whether the disease does. After all, their mission is to get the outbreak here, not the individual.
The subsequently infected individuals are the transfers and connecting flights for the virus. No plane needed.
I also question the timeline of 40+ days, when we had kids showing up at the border wholesale after taking the Beast through the country.
Certainly a terrorist organization would be able to do far better logistically, and get the first person or the second group into the country by having them join the group closer to the border.
They have Billions of dollars at their disposal, and that makes wheels turn faster than they will for the average peon.
When are you going to accept you are working from obsolete clinical information?
We are in completely uncharted territory with this Ebola outbreak.
The current Ebola outbreak is so big we are now seeing many 1 in 100 and some 1 in 1000 clinical expressions of Ebola that don't fit that diagnostic protocol. We can and will see clinical cases that exhibit slower asymptomatic or easily mistaken for other infection patterns of debilitation, or clinical cases who are mostly resistant, Norovirus type, super spreaders.
Exhibit A of one of those race clinical presentations -- a mostly asymptomatic child Ebola carrier from the MSF web site:
““The lab normally doesn’t make mistakes,” Dr. Petrucci continued.
“And especially twice in a row with the same patient.”
So, even though Mamadee was everything but symptomatic, he could theoretically infect others.
“We had no other choice other than to keep him in the CMC as the result was still positive,” she says.”
Link and full text below —
Martin Zinggl/MSF
16 September 2014
http://www.msf.org/article/liberia-boy-who-tricked-ebola
Mamadee, 11, was admitted to MSF’s Ebola management centre in Foya, Liberia on 15 August 2014. He tested positive for Ebola, but recovered, and was discharged on 4 September 2014.
In the ‘Ebola-confirmed’ area of MSF’s Case Management Centre (CMC) in Foya, Liberia, roughly two thirds of patients don’t survive the Ebola virus. The patients gather on wooden benches and plastic chairs. Out of a transistor radio plays loud Azonto, music originating from Ghana. People are weak, lying in their beds while their immune systems are trying to fight the deadly invader in their bodies.
Except one: Mamadee, a young boy of eleven years, is performing an Azonto dance, as the crowd watches him. He jumps, he ducks, he steps to the side, first left, then right, then left, then right, jumps again, turns, swings his hips and shakes his arms. And he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t get tired.
It is difficult to believe but Mamadee is a patient. An Ebola-confirmed patient.
As all clothes and objects that enter the CMC with the admitted patients have to be burnt, Mamadee has been dressed in a new shirt, large enough to fit two of him. He wears grey pyjama pants and blue sandals, at least three sizes too big.
But neither his clothes nor Ebola can stop the young dancer. Some patients envy him, while the nurses and other medical staff have fallen in love with him. Mamadee is the star of the CMC in Foya, as his story is rather exceptional.
When Mamadee was firstly admitted on 15 August, he tested negative for Ebola and was discharged. Staying overnight in the guesthouse as his village Sarkonedu was too far to travel to, he developed some signs and was readmitted the next day. He was displaying symptoms of nausea, fever, muscle pain, intense fatigue, abdominal pain and diarrhoea.
“He was a clear Ebola patient,” says Dr. Roberta Petrucci. “Only the jaundice made us doubt.” The doctors treated him with multivitamins, paracetamol, oral rehydration solution, antibiotics and with antimalarial pills, as Mamadee had also tested positive for malaria.
On 20 August, the second Ebola test result returned and it was as expected – positive. The only thing that didn’t fit into the picture was that young Mamadee in the meantime was already feeling good and running around.
“We couldn’t believe it,” says Dr. Petrucci. “We thought it must have been a mistake.” When the medical staff took another blood test a few days later, they realised that there had been no mistake. Mamadee still tested positive.
“The lab normally doesn’t make mistakes,” Dr. Petrucci continued. “And especially twice in a row with the same patient.” So, even though Mamadee was everything but symptomatic, he could theoretically infect others. “We had no other choice other than to keep him in the CMC as the result was still positive,” she says.
Surrounded by sick patients, Mamadee was the entertainment. He spent his days sleeping, eating, chatting to the other patients – and of course dancing. He was able to turn anything into a toy, be it a slip of paper, a soft drink can or a water sachet.
But a CMC is of course not the place a child wants to be, and boredom comes easily. “I want to leave,” Mamadee says. “Two weeks have been enough. I miss my home, I miss my friends, I even miss going to school.”
Mamadee never complained, nor asked for his laboratory results like other patients do. “The people in the yellow raincoats took good care of me and they helped a lot of other sick patients too.”
Unfortunately Mamadee’s wish to leave could not be granted as his third test on 30 August was also positive. “His medical record is outstanding but not exceptional,” states Dr. Petrucci. “But his attitude is definitely exceptional. Every day, the boy spreads a good spirit to the patients and staff. He is always smiling and happy. Everybody likes him and we will all be very sad and miss him once he leaves, even though we wish for him that he gets out of here as soon as possible.”
The CMC is no playground. Mamadee has seen terrible things in the confirmed patients’ area. “This place is full of dead people. Ebola is a sickness that makes you vomit and your nose bleed and then you die,” says Mamadee. “This is what I will tell my friends when I go home.”
One week after, Mamadee’s sister, Mayan was admitted to the CMC. The 14 year old girl passed away after a few days, just one tent away from her brother. When his mother tells him about Mayan’s death with tears in her eyes, he stays strong and simply says “Don’t cry, Mama”
On 4 September, Mamadee’s fourth test returns from the laboratory in neighbouring Gueckedou, Guinea. It is negative, finally. Mamadee rushes out of the CMC. “I am very happy today,” says the young survivor, not knowing the deadly game he has just won.
Mamadee may have won the game, but Ebola is quickly defeating far too many others.
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This child, Mamadee, was a Norovirus like super spreader.
A charismatic child who could kill the most loving and compassionate among us with a hug.
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