Rolling fomite depositories. Keeping in mind the recently posted study that found a single fomite deposit on a door lever managed to transfer to 60% of total office staff in 120 minutes. Most any virus remains viable in that time
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.
What the WHO, CDC et al are all trying to understand is that “RO” is now a completely meaningless concept.
The primary means of Ebola transmission in West Africa is no longer person to person.
It is _Ebola fomite contaminated environment_ to person.
This is a medical pandemic situation that is completely outside human experience.
There are no experts to listen too here. There are only people.
People who have greater or lessor degrees of front line experience and common sense versus death by fomite.
The PBS/Frontline website just posted the following:
Frontline: Ebola Outbreak - Sierra Leone
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/
It lasts 27 minutes. Watch it.
Rolling fomite depositories. Keeping in mind the recently posted study that found a single fomite deposit on a door lever managed to transfer to 60% of total office staff in 120 minutes. Most any virus remains viable in that time
It not only depicts the obstacles of fighting this, but you see the impassible roads, how few vehicles and staff to manage this and the types of environment to treat these people, very rudiment.... Just 4 vehicles to survey a million people for this virus..says volumes. Not to mention the peoples various ‘superstitions’ get in the way and create further problems with treating and controlling this virus.
Thank you again...well worth the 27 minute viewing...
CW
....”I don’t see any indication that a response large enough to make any difference in what is now certain to be a huge outbreak will happen”.....
Too many country leaderships do not want to make the contributions which could make a difference anymore now then they did prior when it could have been contained.....and until there is a “huge” outpouring of medical teams and staff it will continue to spread wider and wider.
You cannot “contain” this with people who have “supersititions” and the backwardness of thinking that so many there have. Regardless of how the medical staff present the facts, the people often reject.....’believing’ that the medical people simply are “siphoning their blood” prevents containing this.
Once this hits western counties hard enough is when you’ll see the response needed...and the costs will be astounding.
Sunday Obam mentioned he is likely to dispatch “U.S. military resources” to help fight the serious outbreak of Ebola in several countries in West Africa.
I don’t like the idea at all of sending our troops on the ground there....when West Africans have so many militia’s and military people who could be doing this.
Bill Gates foundation gives 50 million for containment etc. of Ebola.... so who will distribute these monies.....it’s Africa after all and the corruption is horrendous.
in order to stay viable, the virus needs to stay housed in moisture. this is how it can pass person to person by the air. water molecules from the lungs. a poorly ventilated room could hold the virus longer.
if the environment stays moist, the virus may remain contagious for a longer period of time. this would be how a an environment can become fomite.
taxi cabs being hailed by sick people trying to get to a hospital would be a prime location for such a situation. blood, sweat, and vomit could seep into the seats and be viable for a number of hours, spreading to every passenger that follows.
once it gets into the US, the only course of action will be to shelter in place. barricade yourself inside and wait it out. i would estimate a 4-8 week window would be required for it to burn itself out without the ability to spread.
Dont forget that in several areas where it has burned through already , they are seeing a resurgence of Ebola.
This might be due to fomites , or to the rainey season.
SInce the virus can remain vital for up to 5 days on either hard surfaces , or in water , I am sure that the West African 'rainey season' is assisting to resurgenece.
QUESTION : Has anyone seen thermal effects on the viability/vitality of the virus ?
Does the virus have the ability to go into 'suspended animation' in freezing temperatures , and then re-annimate ?
I ask this because some virus samples had been nitrogen frozen by the CDC .
I watched it a little bit ago.
I highly recommend watching this.
Thanks for posting the link.
Rome, Sept. 9 -- A suspected case of Ebola was discovered and isolated in Italy's central region of Marche on Tuesday, authorities said.
According to regional Health councillor Almerino Mezzolani, an unidentified 40-year-old woman was hospitalized and isolated at the infectious diseases' department of the main regional hospital in Ancona and was being treated, after showing suspected symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus.
The woman, a foreign regular migrant long living in the town of Civitanova Marche, had recently travelled to Nigeria, where she might have been infected with the virus, the councillor added.
Regional health authorities were gathering all information available on Tuesday, and have meanwhile implemented the emergency procedures necessary to the case.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-09/09/c_133630951.htm
thank you for the update. strange times we live in.
“‘Circumstances Suggest Ebola’: Ngafuan, FA ‘Devastated Over Loss”
“...The minister explained that Mrs. Washington and at least five (5) personnel began their 21- day stay-home on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. “Incidentally, the Minister returned to Liberia on the same August 13, 2014 via Delta Airlines around 5 PM bringing along two boxes containing the Z-Mapp experimental drugs (FrontpageAfrica’s Wade Williams was on the Airport and can confirm this). The 21-day observation period actually ended on September 2, 2014 but the Minister instructed an extension of the stay home of Mrs. Washington and the five (5) others until otherwise advised. Unfortunately, Mrs. Washington passed away on Monday, September 8, 2014, six (6) days after the expiry of the first 21 days and exactly 27 days since Mrs. Washington and the five other personnel were put on compulsory observation.””
Er...eek.
So. Technically this means that the Liberian president is also on the quarantine list?
“Ebola virus: Life on the front line in Liberia”
“...They tell us about a survivor in their community. He came back from the treatment centre, but despite testing negative for the virus infected his girlfriend, who died.
The semen of male Ebola survivors remains contagious for a minimum of seven weeks after infection.
The villagers ask if survivors can be isolated...”
He was CURED. He had a certificate that told everyone just that. Why COULDN’T he have sex with his girlfriend? He was CURED. He was probably illiterate as well. He heard ‘cured’ and tuned out everything else.
How many of the clusters that have popped up after the initial plateau in May have been from survivors doing what men and women do...?
“Mapp Bio’s Ebola Drug Shows Promise, But Making More Will Take Time”
“Millions more at risk in Ebola outbreak, British study finds”
Official: U.S. military’s response to Ebola hampered by lack of expertise with virus
By Lena H. Sun September 9
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/official-us-response-to-ebola-hampered-by-lack-of-expertise-with-deadly-virus/2014/09/09/343e5cd8-385d-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html
Despite President Obama’s call for increased involvement of the U.S. military in the fight against the rapidly escalating Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the United States is hamstrung by a lack of military medical personnel with expertise dealing with the deadly virus, a top official in charge of coordinating the U.S. response said Tuesday.
“There isn’t an existing cadre of people who have experience in treating this epidemic other than” the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said Nancy Lindborg of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Pentagon announced Monday that it would set up a 25-bed field hospital in Liberia to help provide medical care for health workers responding to the epidemic, prompting criticism from international aid groups and global health advocates who said the action was paltry compared with the need in the hardest-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Lindborg said Tuesday that the hospital is intended to provide health care for foreign workers, not Liberians. The goal of the hospital is to “provide assurance that there will be quality health care available for health workers” who have or might volunteer to go to any of the affected countries, she said.
The World Health Organization has said the outbreak is “increasing exponentially” in Liberia. In Montserrado County alone — where the capital, Monrovia, is located — there is a need for 1,000 treatment beds; only 240 exist.
The Defense Department has provided some equipment, supplies and staff in the region since the outbreak began months ago. But the expectation was that Obama’s remarks on Sunday would produce more substantive action and that the U.S. military, with its enormous logistical capacity, extensive air operations and highly trained medical corps, could address gaps in the response quickly.
But the United States does not have a workforce trained in the special protocols for Ebola, Lindborg said. WHO is currently training 500 new workers in Liberia, and the U.S. government is supporting that effort, she said.
“I would like to know, do they think the response to date by the U.S. government will make any difference in the course of events in the current epidemic?” said Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, which has been the aid group working most actively since the outbreak began months ago.
During the same news briefing Tuesday, a top Pentagon official declined to provide specifics about other military assets that could be deployed.
“We’re continuing to evaluate where to best support the overall effort,” said Michael Lumpkin, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflicts.
The Pentagon is providing two fully-equipped diagnostic labs to Liberia to help with testing and the tracing of infected patients, he said.
A senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because planning is still underway suggested that additional U.S. assistance is likely. “We’re considering options and, to be sure, our response will be commensurate with how the president views this outbreak: as a national security priority,” the official said.
USAID said it is sending 1,000 treatment beds for direct patient care and $10 million to transport 100 health-care workers from member countries of the African Union to the affected region, bringing the total amount spent by the United States to more than $100 million since the outbreak began.
The death toll has climbed to at least 2,296 in West Africa, WHO announced Tuesday. The new figure, current through Saturday, shows a staggering spike of nearly 200 new deaths recorded in one day. West Africa has 4,293 total cases of confirmed, probable and suspected Ebola infections, a number that could rise as high as 20,000, WHO has warned.
More than half of the epidemic’s deaths (1,224) and nearly half of all cases (2,046) have been in Liberia. The country has become so overwhelmed that only 31 percent of Ebola cases in Liberia have been lab-confirmed through blood tests, WHO said. Another 47 percent of Liberia’s cases have been deemed “probable,” which means the have been evaluated by a clinician, according to WHO. Probable cases also include people who had suspected cases and died and had a link to someone with a confirmed case.
Several factors account for why so many Liberian cases aren’t confirmed by labs, WHO spokesman Daniel Epstein said Tuesday. Among them are the sheer volume of cases in that country, poor infrastructure and the limited number of Ebola labs and staff throughout West Africa.
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