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.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/ebola-overwhelming-african-health-services-20140910-10f6xf.html
“Ebola overwhelming African health services”
“Ebola is threatening Liberia’s ‘national existence’ says defence minister and now the first suspected case of the disease reaches Italy”
Another Getty Photo of same scene
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/liberian-street-artist-stephen-doe-paints-on-september-8-news-photo/454961816
What's the first thing you notice at left of wall?
I think the reference is to the PBS film Dark Wing mentioned.
PFI- Pixcie's post:
"And did you notice - one of Fallah's early symptoms was that he was coughing.
That's not good. That's not supposed to happen either.
The documentary was filmed in July."
http://singtomeohmuse.com/viewtopic.php?t=5725&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=2055
Clearly the graphic shows the danger of ebola transmission via coughing droplets, as the vomiting warning is next.
Certainly makes one wonder, about short distance aerosol spread when film and graphics are taken together. Then again Fallah may have had a concurrent ailment as PFI poster notes.
What is 'RO'?
Thank you
The only way this has ever been stopped, is to contain the infected and isolate them from the rest of humanity.
There is no cure, only 'hope' of finding one. Supportive care only works if there is enough to go around. Hope and Ebola can coexist in a host, until the Ebola prevails.
Usually, containment has been achieved by the location of the outbreak in small rural populations, and the fact that those infected lived or died before it could spread beyond that small group.
Never before has the virus had such opportunity to spread, nor such a large and incredibly mobile population to infect.
That pool of possibilities just keeps getting deeper because of the actions of the host, failing to contain the virus to a region, a nation, or even a continent.
It is up to humans to stop it: The virus is just doing what a virus does--it's replicating. We have to limit the opportunity for it to do so.
Now, if we can just get the people in denial to let go of the idea that somehow our surfaces are different from other surfaces, that people who depend on taxis, whether it be in Monrovia or New York City will be at risk of exposure if the disease is present, that public transportation and common contact surfaces here are just as much a potential vector as they are there, and that this is just a lethal virus.
It doesn't care who you are, what you make a year, how educated you are, what language you speak, whether you are a couch potato or work out every day at the gym (the latter may be at higher exposure risk, actually), it just replicates when it finds a host.
It doesn't matter if you are pretty and the cameras swoon at your sight, or are ugly enough to stop a clock, you are food. Raw materials...and a potential vector.
I keep seeing the theme that somehow, by virtue of education, technology, or some other discerning factor, that our society will stop this in its tracks if it gets here.
NO. It just doesn't work that way. That's not how any of this works.
Our medical system gets overrun in the city ERs on a hot August night and a full moon. Cold and Flu season put a strain on things, and they don't require level 4 biocontainment.
From the start of this thread, I have been trying to walk the razor's edge between adequate concern and panic, and that path seems to be getting narrower.
I want people to start thinking of what they do, playing 'what if' that surface was contaminated, examining their unconscious habits to see what might kill them and perhaps changing those habits before they get a chance to get infected.
Don't let it stress you to insanity, but make a game of it, like 'cooties' used to be when we were kids--only pick a surface other people touch...
How many times did you touch one of those surfaces and rub an eye, pick at something caught in your teeth, make contact with a mucous membrane or food you were consuming?
I was shocked to find I got "killed" half a dozen times in the first hour the first time--usually by rubbing an eye, once dealing with a moustache hair that didn't simply fall free when it reached the end of its service life... (I guess an instant advantage of full-face respirators is that it makes that harder to do.)
But by paying attention, I'm down to once an hour...
Play the game, people.
It might end up saving you from a cold some day, or save your life.
We need to become really conscious of the little habits we all have that might kill us if this gets loose here.
And, being conscious of the vulnerabilities inherent in human behaviour, we need to push our government, and indeed the governments of the world to take steps to contain the disease. We can ship the basics there, to where it isn't completely out of control, to the neighboring countries, we can send people if they choose. What is folly is to bring the disease to us and give it unprecedented opportunity in a population never before exposed.
I have not seen anything which maintains that the virus does not survive in dried out secretions, at least for a few hours, depending on UV exposure and temperature. . It would be easier to pick up a liquid or wet patch with the virus in it on fabrics or skin than the dried crust, but with an ID50 of one to ten virons, moist tissue or material (food, for instance, dropped on a counter or table and picked up and eaten) should be able to transfer enough virus to infect if introduced to any opening in the skin or mucous membrane or the eyes.
Whether this can survive long enough and be sufficiently carried in dust to cause infection is anyone's guess. I simply do not know.
Ah, now I get his point. Thanks.
I wonder if they have Enterovirus 68 over there, too?
That is terribly unfortunate. I read one journal article where infectious virus was isolated from semen 82 days after symptom onset.
I wonder what kind of discharge instruction is given to patients upon discharge? Maybe they should be provided with condoms?
Good rant, and I agree. The pols will eventually lock things down not out of fear for the disease, but of fear for their personal safety.
R0 is how many people an infected person infects. So if a patient infects 3 others, that patient’s R0 is 3. It’s a statistic used to determine whether a communicable disease is spreading (R0 greater than 1), steady (R0 = 1) or receding (R0 less than 1).
The WHO is included in your analysis. Read the internally incoherent advice regarding travel and transportation they’ve released. It’s absurd.
http://www.who.int/ith/updates/20140421/en/
Yes: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.long
Virus was detected by culture .... which to me means the virus survived the freezing and was able to be cultured.
See my previous link. The fomites collected and analyzed by that study were not seen to be a very viable vector. Howeer, some were a vector. The other problem is that gathering and storing the fomites for that study was imprecise and probably flawed.
IIRC, it is known to survive at -70 degrees.
This is bad. Very, very bad.
I saw that same discussion on PFI. As the posters there noted, the people in Africa are well aware of what the symptoms are. This is very unnerving. Also, I was reading a quote (or was it on the special? Everything is running together) from a MSF doctor, which said that when they (the Drs) are talking with someone, they make sure they are standing 2 meters away and to the side of the person, when they are not wearing protective clothing.
Yeah, that sounds as if it’s really “hard to catch”, doesn’t it? *smh*
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