Posted on 10/14/2014 2:28:15 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
For public health workers screening more than 1,000 air travelers who arrive each week in the United States from Ebola-stricken West Africa, one symptom above all others is supposed to signal danger: fever.
So long as an individual's temperature does not exceed 101.5 degrees and there are no visible symptoms of Ebola, health authorities say it should be assumed the person is not infectious.
Yet the largest study of the current outbreak found that in nearly 13% of "confirmed and probable" cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and elsewhere, those infected did not have fevers.
The study, sponsored by the World Health Organization and published online late last month by the New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data on 3,343 confirmed and 667 probable cases of Ebola.
The finding that 87.1% of those infected exhibited fever — but 12.9% did not — illustrates the challenges confronting health authorities as they struggle to contain the epidemic.
U.S. health officials have repeatedly emphasized that fever is a reliable sign of infectiousness. As a defense against the spread of the virus to this country, the Obama administration has ordered that passengers arriving from West Africa at five U.S. airports be checked for fever.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, underlined the importance of fever in discussing the case of Thomas E. Duncan, a Liberian who traveled by air to Dallas and was diagnosed with Ebola. He died Wednesday.
Referring to those who had close contact with Duncan, Frieden said a week ago: "The only thing we need to ensure is that their temperature is monitored, and if they develop a fever, that they are immediately assessed, isolated and if found to be positive, then appropriately cared for."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Open borders and Ebola.
We are not worthy of his great and wonderful leadership.
The fact that they disclosed the names of the five airports....simply means a smart infected guy from Africa....will fly into Frankfurt, and pick one of the other forty US international airports as the entry point. Or they might even get smart...flying from Africa onto Thailand, and then onto the US west coast. You’d have to be awful naive in the CDC to advocate this limited response and think it’ll be the most minimum step you could take before getting fired.
The article misses the point on this research. You can have Ebola without having a fever (for up to roughly three weeks). The point is that the risk of infection through casual contact is quite low until fever appears, and normally for a couple days after fever appears, because virus levels are quite low early in the progression of the disease.
One warning they don't mention is that sexual contact involves more exposure for a much longer time than other contact with bodily fluids, and Ebola is contagious through sex both before it is contagious through normal contact and after for at least 90 days beyond apparent recovery from the disease.
Besides, our first patient flew in BEFORE he had a fever. The safest policy is to tighten VISAs — no non-essential VISAs.
And I heard the libs in Minnesota are up in arms that they aren’t getting this screening at their airport. And, of course they are right. That airport is a huge hub, and there are millions of sudanese immigrants in that area.
It’s so stupid anyway, with a three week incuabtion period someone could travel back and forth the the us dozens of times before showing symptoms.
It’s just more “theatre” for public consumption.
To put this into a simplified way for a liberal....all of these major international airports in the US are in “BLUE” cities where the votes go tend to go sixty-percent for Democrats.
What happens when you have 2016 roll around, the election comes up, and ten to twenty percent percent of your urban area have passed on? I know you count on dead voters to some degree, but could you rely on 100,000 dead voters in St Paul to give you the vote turn-out....if they all died from Ebola?
Yeah, RED votes come from non-urban and rural areas. They will be hit by Ebola....but it’ll be months, and maybe even four years before it’s fully there.
A true liberal would go to bed tonight fairly worried. Dead blue voters....in massive numbers...can you really get them to turn out?
Maybe that’s what that crazy person Alan Grayson was thinking.
He’s such a loon, yet he’s the first one to officially call for a travel ban.
I guess we file this under: stopped clock right at least twice a day.
I have a feeling that the incubation period is not truly known and that just like any flu...some barf, some have diahara, very low grade, a cough, a sneeze....so until you’re really sick...”minor” symptoms simply doesn’t disrupt your life.
Right. Infected and infectious are two different things.
However, there are grey areas here. Low risk of infection is not zero risk of infection. When dealing with a disease with a mortality rate of 50% or more, and such variable incubation times, “low risk” has a somewhat different meaning than if we were talking about initial stages of a low mortality disease.
Moreover, what if a low risk carrier comes into contact with a high risk (say, a compromised immune system) recipient? How many virons does it take to infect such a person?
There is a lot they are not mentioning about this disease. Supposedly a non-symptomatic nurse in Nigeria gave it to another patient. So no, even fever might not be the clue that you are contagious.
Entirely misses the point. The point is that a normal temperature does not rule out infection.
Putting it another way, false positives are not the danger; false negatives are.
Yes, that is correct, what about those people? Children, old people, people who are already sick in some way?
They really are making only the most cursory attempts to keep people with ebola out of the country.
And this idea of: we can contain it, it won’t be widespread, well that’s not a lot of help to anyone, like that poor nurse, who DOES get it.
Britain stopped flights, France stopped flights, the Saudis wouldn’t let anyone come there for the Haaj (very good idea and I’m glad they did it), so you know, what’s the problem?
I’m sorry, nobody needs to come here from Liberia, etc. right now. Come later.
Yeah....I read here on FR a report a couple of days ago that a good indicator of Ebola is that the patient has hiccups...because the diaphragm is weakened and causes irritation.
Holder......Living in the Cayman Islands yet??
(Credit: AP)
The photo you posted was an AP Photo taken by Evan Vucci
Associated Press has a copyright restriction against Free Republic which prohibits posting any of their photos.
Please do not put Free Republic nor Jim Robinson at risk of a copyright infringement lawsuit by continuing to post copyright violating photos.
Thank you.
The Times has been straying from the plantation lately.
WAKE UP!!!! CLOSE THE BORDERS. STOP THE FLIGHTS.
US News, CDC, and current president - not a current surefire sign of understanding basic concepts!
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.