Posted on 10/06/2014 2:46:46 AM PDT by Enlightened1
The virus is continually changing its genetic makeup. The more people who become infected, the greater the chance becomes that it will mutate ...
... which might speed its spread. Yes, that really is the apocalyptic scenario. Humans are actually just an accidental host for the virus, and not a good one. From the perspective of a virus, it isn't desirable for its host, within which the pathogen hopes to multiply, to die so quickly. It would be much better for the virus to allow us to stay alive longer.
Could the virus suddenly change itself such that it could be spread through the air?
Like measles, you mean? Luckily that is extremely unlikely. But a mutation that would allow Ebola patients to live a couple of weeks longer is certainly possible and would be advantageous for the virus. But that would allow Ebola patients to infect many, many more people than is currently the case.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
If Ebola had originated in Israel the Bam team would have locked down every avenue of connection to it but since the virus is of African origin it has been granted an amnesty with a warm welcome.
Yep....any little excuse to harm or denounce Israrl.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Almost any combination of mutations (because it would require more than one mutation) that enabled Ebola to survive longer in a host would make it less pathogenic, less likely to kill the host. Even if that happened, Ebola would still be a blood borne pathogen, which is not very contagious.
Ebola is dramatic, but from a pure lethality point of view, the most dangerous pathogens are those that can be transmitted through the respiratory route, aerosolize naturally, and have a low but not zero mortality rate. Measles kills about 2 or 3 per 1,000 infected—it killed over 100,000 (worldwide) in 2012. Influenza death rates vary, but it typically causes 3,000 to 50,000 deaths in the US every year. Drug resistant tuberculosis is also spreading; I don’t have the death rate of TB memorized, but it is another highly transmissible and deadly disease.
Response: If it gets weaker, than why is the World Health Organization protecting 1.4 million dead by January and a German health organization has projected 5 million dead in 3 months? If it was getting weaker..., then this would not happen.
“Ebola is dramatic, but from a pure lethality point of view, the most dangerous pathogens are those that can be transmitted through the respiratory route, aerosolize naturally, and have a low but not zero mortality rate. Measles kills about 2 or 3 per 1,000 infected—it killed over 100,000 (worldwide) in 2012. Influenza death rates vary, but it typically causes 3,000 to 50,000 deaths in the US every year.”
Response: Some reports are saying that it IS AIRBORNE, and why it's spreading like wild fire in West Africa. Although that has not been officially confirmed.
Many of the influenza death rates too are from senior citizens, injured people, and the very young. It does not affect the average person like Ebola.
President Ebola
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/president-ebola/
a) Weakens America/AmericansI have yet to have anyone raise a single substantive counter example in several years of posting this.
b) Distances America's allies
c) Strengthens America's enemies
d) Serves Islam
e) Harms Israel
Or some combination of the above.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
ping...
If you have scientific references that document actual airborne transmission of Ebola, please post them here. A link to the PubMed entry and a short description of the paper is adequate. I don't want to see references to artificially aerosolized virus in the lab, I want to see references of natural aerosolization through the respiratory tract of an infected human or monkey.
No virus has ever been known to change its mode of transmission. I do not think Ebola is going to make that change, either.
The report xited here at least 6 times and 2 time on threads you have been on say it can be transmitted through the air without direct physical contact.
It does not rise to the level of the definition of airborne transmission (a very narrow, technical definition) , but infection without direct patient to patient contact has been demonstrated.
Note: the CDC recommends not even entering a room of an ebola patient without full protective gear including respirator and eye protection. A recent researcher has come out and says positive pressure filtered airsource with full hood should be required.
It does not rise to the level of the definition of airborne transmission (a very narrow, technical definition) , but infection without direct patient to patient contact has been demonstrated.
If you are going to claim that a report cited several times on various threads documents true airborne transmission, please take a moment to cite it so that I can look it over and see what it really says.
Sorry, I do not work for you. You can use Google if you like, it is a free search engine
In other words, you really did not see a reference that indicates that Ebola can spread through aerosols.
This applies to you, and to anyone else who makes a claim, especially one that contradicts what the scientific community says. It is not up to me to track down what you claim you saw, and I am not a mind-reader to know what you are referring to. It is up to you to present the evidence to support the claim. I don't mind tracking down and downloading references once you provide the citation. But I'm not going to find a citation for you.
Another entitlement type wanting others to do their work. And spouting the CDC propaganda. I am shocked.
Note: You ain’t in charge here, honey
Ebola is not just blood borne. Virtually every body fluid is contagious. Norovirus and the common cold are both transmitted the same way - by contact and droplets. Not very contagious? Particularly when in the final throes of the disease the patients often vomit violently and spread other highly infectious fluids copiously.
Prior to symptoms, an Ebola patient is not infectious. Once symptoms appear, they become progressively more infectious as time goes by.
Although many bodily fluids are mentioned as possibly being contaminated with virus, this paper shows that there actually is not virus in most bodily fluids. Few of the fluids had detectable viral RNA, and fewer still had culturable virus. The presence of RNA alone means nothing, if virus cannot be cultured from the same sample.
Now, that paper was limited and the methodology was not ideal, so I would be hesitant to say that the fluids found to be free of culturable virus would always be non-infective in every patient. Clearly, a more robust study needs to be done.
What I will say is that any bodily fluid contaminated with blood (even in quantities too small to see) is likely to be contagious.
In any case, a patient who has advanced far enough in the disease to be contagious through direct contact is ill enough to be in ICU in an ID unit. He or she is not traveling around potentially leaving a trail of infected vomit or feces.
Norovirus and the common cold are both highly contagious, far more than Ebola. You don't have to be in the same room as someone to catch either of those two diseases from them.
Even in an ICU the patient can trail infectious fluids all over the room they occupy. Not only physicians, but nursing staff, CNAs and janitors, lab personnel, kitchen workers delivering meals are all exposed to these fluids. Unlike most pontificating here, I will be on the front line caring for anyone in my institution that may have Ebola. If I come in contact with any suspected or diagnosed Ebola patients, my little one is on her way to relatives for the duration of the time I care for them and 21 days after. I am well aware of isolation techniques and a veteran of 30 years medical practice, including when HIV was an unknown quantity. This is one I am concerned enough about to isolate myself from family if I encounter an infected individual.
And sorry, to get infected with the common cold, influenza or norovirus, you still have to come in contact with infectious body fluids. The isolation on all of those is contact and droplet the same as ebola. It is orders of magnitude easier to contact ebola than other blood borne illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis C, both of which I deal with on a daily basis.
It is my understanding, not as a medical doctor or research scientist but just from what I’ve read as a very interested layperson about infectious diseases, and you can correct me if I am wrong, but that other blood borne infectious diseases, viruses such as HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C that are transmitted similarly to Ebola, i.e. via direct contact with bodily fluids, in case of HIV/AIDS, despite many years, several decades of infecting many millions of people across all continents and in the case of Hepatitis B & C, untold many millions of people over many thousands of years, have never mutated to become airborne or mutated to become just like and be transmitted like a respiratory virus like Influenza.
I am unaware from my “research”, i.e. my layperson’s reading of numerous scientific papers and articles, of any blood borne virus making a sudden jump via mutation to become an air borne virus. It seems very unlikely to me that Ebola would make such a jump via mutation since we’ve not seen such a jump in any other similar viruses. Just as it would be highly unlikely and something never observed previously for the Influenza virus to suddenly mutate in the other direction to become solely a blood borne disease and “mutate” to no longer be a respiratory virus and suddenly act and infect just like HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C.
I just have to shake my head on some posts I’ve read here that propose what “might” happen if Ebola and Influenza “meet” and mutate into a Super Virus: “Ebolafluenza”. That might make for an entertaining Sci-Fi movie along the lines of “Sharknado” but like the lady in that car insurance commercial might say, “That’s not how this works; that’s not how any of this works”. : ),
Influenza and Rhino viruses and to some extent Enteroviruses do mutate, some more than others and some like Influenza and Rhino viruses, just about every cold and flu season, but they don’t change their mode of transmission. There are several strains of Ebola but as far as viruses go, from what I understand, Ebola is rather “stable” as far as mutations go. That’s not to say that given this unprecedented outbreak that Ebola virus might not undergo some mutations; either becoming more or less lethal or more or less infectious over time but I don’t see any precedence or evidence for it becoming “airborne”.
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