Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
Hopefully NOT false negatives...
Satire alert!
I.e., everyone in America can be vaccinated against Ebola by the end of May 2015. Only the political will to do so is lacking.
This would be impractical, expensive, and unnecessary. If there is naturally Ebola or similar virus in the US, we have so little contact with its animal reservoir that we have never discovered it. Recently, such a virus was discovered in Spain--its pretty remarkable that it was never seen before, considering that Spain has been populated for millenia.
The ideal situation for Ebola would be that a vaccine would be approved (very difficult, considering that it can never be tested in the normal clinical trial protocols) and that it would be kept on reserve so that when an Ebola case happens, every possible contact can be vaccinated so the disease has no chance to spread. Vaccinating potential contacts is a tactic that has worked to contain outbreaks of other diseases, and would work with Ebola.
In the US and much of the world, we have a zoonotic disease that is 100% fatal if not treated before symptoms appear. Yet we only vaccinated people who are at occupational risk of getting it, such as veterinarians. Once in a while, someone gets exposed without knowing it, and dies. Contacts of that person are vaccinated and given serum. Although fairly contagious, highly lethal, and endemic to wild animals (we have had several cases this year in my area), the fact that a rabies vaccine exists is enough to prevent huge outbreaks.
"ZMapp, developed by San Diego-based biotech Mapp Biopharmaceutical, is a biological drug. The antibodies that spark the immune system are produced in tobacco plants, then extracted from the plant to make the drug."
This is a time-consuming process, like manufacture of biological drugs always is. It also takes a lot of plants to make a small amount of drug. Plus, despite the publicity, we still do not know if ZMapp was really effective. Two of seven patients who received it died; statistically, this is not a significant result. Statistically, given the 50-60% fatality rate in this outbreak, we would have expected 3 or 4 of those patients to die. If you just select groups of seven Ebola patients at random, some groups will have 2 survivors, some will have none, some will have seven--just the laws of statistics working, here. There is simply no way we can know it worked without testing it on a significant number of patients. Plus, there is an ethical issue, in assigning some patients to receive placebo and others to receive the drug for testing purposes.
Thank you for the ping. I am bookmarking this to watch later.
Thank you for the reports.
Hopefully all these deputies ate bad burritos from the same place. Otherwise...
Ebola Panic Inches Closer to Hollywood: Possible Patient Rushed to LA Hospital
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3213110/posts
CDC’s Ebola Advice to Airline Crews: Watch for Passengers ‘Using Restroom Many Times’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3213116/posts?page=1
just in time...
Something unusual is going on:
The family members of Duncan who lived with him in the apartment have not presented with ebola symptoms to date despite having close contact with Duncan prior to his hospitalization.
Yet a deputy, who entered the apartment merely to serve papers, becomes symptomatic within 5 days.
I dont think the deputy has Ebola. But, the virus presents differently in every case. Thats why incubation takes a range of dates.
Not likely, unless y. pestis was there with it.
Just Breaking...
Ebola crisis: Officials say British man suspected of contracting Ebola has died in Macedonia
People arriving in UK at Gatwick, Heathrow or on Eurostar will face questions & possible medical tests
>>The family members of Duncan who lived with him in the
>>apartment have not presented with ebola symptoms to date
>>despite having close contact with Duncan prior to his >>hospitalization.
It is still too soon to know.
The MSF news site had — it was scrubbed the other day — at least one case study of exhibiting Ebola symptoms taking up to 40 days to appear after the last documented exposure.
>>Yet a deputy, who entered the apartment merely to
>>serve papers, becomes symptomatic within 5 days.
Ebola symptoms exhibited vary based on the viral load and immune systems of those infected.
There are at least three different RNA variants of this Ebola virus in the current outbreak with different suites of clinical symptoms.
What Ebola symptoms you show and when are an uncertain cloud and not a strict and easily identifiable script.
For example the PBS NOVA science show report on Ebola showed hiccups as a symptom, mostly towards the end of a lethal case.
However, I have read reports of Ebola survivors with light symptoms of infextion having hiccups as well.
What we know about Ebola is changing as Ebola adapts to its new host environments and as reports of those changes filter through the various organizations reporting on those adaptations.
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