‘Don’t Touch the Walls’: Ebola Fears Infect an African Hospital

New York Slimes ^ | 8/7/2014 | Adam Nossiter

[mojito]

KENEMA, Sierra Leone — So many patients, nurses and health workers have died in the government hospital that many people in this city, a center of the world’s worst Ebola epidemic, see it as a death trap.

Now, the wards are empty in the principal institution fighting the disease. Ebola stalks the city, claiming lives every day, but patients have fled the hospital’s long, narrow buildings, which sit silent and echoing in the fading light. Few people are taking any chances by coming here.

“Don’t touch the walls!” a Western medical technician yelled out. “Totally infected.”

Some Ebola patients still die at the hospital, perhaps four per day, in the tentlike temporary isolation ward at the back of the muddy grounds. But just as many, if not more, are dying in the city and neighboring villages, greatly increasing the risk of spreading the disease and undermining international efforts to halt the epidemic.

“People don’t die here now,” said the deputy chief of the hospital’s burying team, Albert J. Mattia, exasperated after a long day of Ebola burials. “They are dying in the community, five, six a day.”

[mojito]

Don't touch the walls.

Sounds like we've lost containment.

[ClearCase_guy]

we've lost containment.

Perhaps we'll lose the continent.

[mojito]

It sounds like we may already have, but we just don't know it yet.

From Richard Fernandez:

“...we have no idea what is happening in Sierra Leone or Guinea, which is one of the most corrupt countries on earth. Officials claim only about 1,000 people have died from Ebola in West Africa so far, ‘not many’ in such a vast region. But this completely underrates the real danger. The relevant population against which such casualties must be measured are the medical personnel. They are being wiped out. Africa has a very limited store of scientific, medical and technical human capital and once these irreplaceables are killed or intimidated then the man issuing the medical exit visas will be an illiterate with a rubber stamp.”

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/08/08/viral/#more-38550

[vox_freedom]

So much for physical therapy for the sore shoulder, eh?

[ClearCase_guy]

Interesting observation.

The earth has been swept by devastating diseases many times. 1918 wasn't that long ago, but many people seem confident that modern medicine can deal with just about anything. It will be quite a wake-up call if we see deaths in the tens of millions -- from ebola, smallpox, or whatever.

Note that vials of smallpox were recently found in a drawer or closet at some US medical facility. Everyone had forgotten they were there. Sat unguarded for decades.

You think smallpox won't come back? I'm quite sure it will.

[BenLurkin]

Nah, it’s alright. Just don’t touch the walls. Or anything else.

[Gadsden1st]

I have heard that in American hospitals the walls from 12” down and floors, even in ORs, are considered non sterile.

What I find interesting is the number of staff in scrubs in non hospital locations.

[The KG9 Kid]

I call dibs on Victoria Falls. Or Botswana. Whichever.

[conservative cat]

I get so disgusted when I see scrubs in the stores.

[jpsb]

Things are much much worse then are being reported. I’ve read that 30,000 are infected in West Africa. The locals are no longer seeking treatment in hospitals as they have correctly decided that going to a hospital is a certain death sentence. Whole villages in the “bush” are being wiped out, bodies are piling up in the streets in urban centers. For sure this is going to Europe I just hope our two oceans protect us in North America.

[Axenolith]

Extrapolated for current population levels, the lower cohesiveness of family units and the dependence of large swaths of population on technology unmaintainable by 99+% of the population today, the 1918 Flu would probably have an even shot at seriously damaging or collapsing civilization. Anything with a mortality rate much over 3-5% will probably achieve this result.

Anything with 10+% mortality and it would probably be time for Dark Ages Part II.

[Axenolith]

Got any links to stories or anecdotal references to those numbers?

[independentmind]

The government hospital at Kenema was apparently used as part of a research project into Lassa fever sponsored by the US. It has been reported that both USAMRIID and infectious disease specialists at Tulane University were involved.

It would be nice to know what exactly they were doing, and if their research involved any gain-of-function experiments which could have affected the Ebola virus. As I understand it, some virologists believe that by experimenting with mutations that make a virus more virulent, they can produce more effective vaccines.

This approach apparently is quite controversial within the public health community, as many believe that it has the ability to generate a potential pandemic pathogen.

More information about ethical concerns over virus experiments can be found here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/virus-experiments-risk-global-pandemic

Interesting to note that this was reported in May of this year. One has to wonder what prompted the epidemiologists at Harvard and Yale to protest.

[steve86]

I’ve read that 30,000 are infected in West Africa.

Where? in the National Enquirer?

[sten]

there are about 1800 reported cases.

assume not all are being reported. if just 100 were infected and continued to walk around in a densely populated city... it'd take NO TIME to get to 30,000

only reason it hasn't happened yet was... it hasn't hit a densely populated city... yet

it bounced off lagos, but they *think* they have it contained. the next 7-10 days will tell which way it goes.

btw, these graphs should make you very nervous (data source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak#Timeline_of_the_outbreak)

[independentmind]

IIRC, 30K was reported to be the number of people the Nigerian government was interested in tracing regarding the potential contact network of Patrick Sawyer.

[Georgia Girl 2]

That’s why they whisk you in and out of the hospital so fast now so you won’t pick up strep or whatever else is luking there.

[steve86]

btw, these graphs should make you very nervous

I am nervous and have been following the epidemiology of Ebola HF for years.

However, you should know that graphs going parabolic often collapse shortly afterward -- simple technical analysis. There is more room for exponential growth from this point, but the line will not go up vertically for long.

[mojito]

It would be nice to know what exactly they were doing

I've seen these reports. Troubling, to say the least.

[MarMema]

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