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.
I read that earlier today. You can just hear the frustration and desperation in this interview. He speaks of his guilt turning to anger, which is turning to rage. What he describes are scenes straight out of a horror movie. I can’t even imagine...
“Wearing personal protective clothing, you lose so much sweat, it’s very easy to become dehydrated, you have to manage your time very well. The stress of being overwhelmed and having to prioritise what you do in that area ... you have a limited time and there is so much to do. And what we’re having to prioritise is obscene.
We were turning away patients and that’s inconceivable - that one patient can cause so many deaths.
The ones that are vomiting blood, you try to get them away from the front of the centre. Finding the dead bodies, that was a priority, of course you can’t have dead bodies next to people who are still alive. You are trying to find those ones and coordinate their removal. You’re trying to find the ones who are really suffering and try to relieve that us much as you can. You’re trying to make sure everyone has food and water. You’re trying to remove the bodies from the morgue and make sure it’s not overflowing. You’re so overwhelmed.”
Need to verify that the 15 original patients (13 survived) really did have Ebola. Sometimes details like that get overlooked. Next set of subjects should be evaluated by better western clinical tests.
Interesting information. Thanks for helping to make things clear for many of us who know very little about such things.
She knows of what she speaks.
You’re welcome.
I try my best to make this stuff understandable to people who do not have a science background.
The doc’s name is ‘Gabriel Logan’ from other news articles about the ebola isolation center in Tubmanburg. You don’t get into the isolation center itself as a patient w/o a positive test. They simply don’t have the beds for maybe’s.
Dr. Gabriel Logan in in charge of the ebola isolation center in Tubmanburg.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201408191407.html
NIH is about 10 minutes down the road from me. Unless they’ve made some changes in the last four years it’s a small Level 4 lab that they’ve been operating under Level 3 protocols. There’s a big difference. Unless they’ve been operating and testing the air handling units on a regular basis they might not have the Level 4 protection they think they have. Seals and belts need maintenance.
NIH recent history on storage and handling of lethal biologicals is not confidence inspiring.
That is true, but people are larger than vials or whatever was lost or misplaced...
(rant: on)
The CDC is optimistically saying the “worst case” can be avoided if we just make a big enough commitment, and that we will do so.
The happy talk from the CDC is nice. We have nothing to worry about HERE.
Meanwhile, in Africa, there are precious few actual results from those “commitments” and the pandemic is growing faster than the commitments even if they are eventually honored (talk is cheap).
The public is NOT being told what happens if the commitment is too little, too late.
Here’s what is actually happening:
1. The medical infrastructure could not handle this in the first place, and much of that infrastructure has already crumbled.
2. The disease is expanding so quickly that basic services will soon begin to fail as well.
So unless we can turn this around, right now, here’s what will happen:
A. What’s left of the medical infrastructure, already ineffective, will collapse. The pandemic will accelerate even more.
B. As the pandemic accelerates, the people needed to keep basic infrastructure going will die. Water, sewer, and electricity will begin to fail. Food distribution will cease.
C. When this begins to happen the population will panic. As many as possible will flee. The process of overall collapse will accelerate.
D. Most of those who are unable to flee will eventually die. Some of those who are able to flee will carry the disease with them.
ALL OF THIS IS EASILY PREDICTABLE.
AT THIS POINT IT IS ALSO THE MOST PROBABLE OUTCOME.
Our “leaders” are full of happy talk about how much they plan to do. Our media glibly repeats the happy talk. Our public is asleep.
(rant: off)
I didn't say there was no positive test. I suggested that a better test, one with fewer false positives, should be used the next time this anti-viral is tried. Sometimes an individual clinician will become overly-enthusiastic about his discovery and will not use the rigorous controls that are needed to evaluate the therapy. I do hope it works but you can't let down your scientific skepticism.
” I suggested that a better test, one with fewer false positives, should be used the next time this anti-viral is tried. “
The test for ebola is fraught with false negatives, not false positives.
If you look at the structure for this particular drug you will see a very similar structural moiety that’s also present in the favipiravir that’s arrested ebola in lab studies.
What ‘rigorous controls’ would you suggest with patients who have an 80+% mortality rate should they be placed in a ‘control’ group?
Maybe if we wait 6 months or so to set up a proper experiment we could ‘properly’ test this and other experimental drugs. Course, there’ll be a half a million dead by then. But at least we’ll have a properly controlled experiment.
If your loved one was infected with ebola would you stamp your foot and insist on only treatments that had been tested with ‘proper controls’?
I would advise not rejecting the scientific method under these circumstances. The more dire the circumstances the greater the need to operate free of bias and sentimentality.
Simple replication of the findings by another professional would suffice as a first step.
I remember a few years ago when an enthusiastic clinician announced that Vitamin D prevented influenza.
The issue isn’t withholding treatment. No one advocated control groups — the rest of the sick population is the control group. The issue is advancing treatment for this deadly disease based on valid and repeatable findings.
The observation from one of the articles that a theoretical justification is found in the viral similarity to HIV is encouraging.
“I would advise not rejecting the scientific method under these circumstances. The more dire the circumstances the greater the need to operate free of bias and sentimentality.”
Great. Show me similar controlled studies for vaccine effectiveness. Particularly the polio and measles ones.
I’ll wait.
How many blood samples of Ebola victims are taken daily? IV’s?
Each day the epidemic persists makes 70 percent more difficult to reach. More doctors, hospital beds and treatment centers will be needed, and more people must be educated about the disease. For every 30-day delay, the peak number of new daily cases triples, according to a model of the disease created by the CDC.
Triple instead of the stated doubling exponential.
Based on a 30-day triple, the Ebola doubling time is now down to two weeks and 3-to-4 days.
However, Three weeks ago cases were about ~2,000 and the last report posted [24 September 2014] was over 6,000.
See below —
By Tom Randall Sep 26, 2014 5:57 PM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/ebola-s-magic-number-and-the-cost-of-coming-up-short.html
There are a lot of scary numbers floating around about Ebola. Take 1.4 million: the CDC’s worst-case scenario for Ebola cases in Western Africa by the end of January. Or two: the approximate number of healthy people infected by each new Ebola patient.
But perhaps the most important Ebola number right now is 70 percent. That’s the proportion of patients who need to be isolated — in treatment centers or at least in their homes — in order to put a quick end to the Ebola outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Once 70 percent of patients are effectively isolated, the outbreak decreases at a rate nearly equal to the initial rate of increase,” researchers wrote today in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. If 70 percent of the current outbreak was achieved by late December, the epidemic “would be almost ended by January 20.”
Seventy percent is a number full of hope and dread. Hope, because it’s a goal that feels attainable; a developed country would be able to handle 70 percent isolation on its own soil in short order. Dread, because in Ebola-swept regions like Liberia and Sierra Leone, we are nowhere near achieving it. Right now, only about 18 percent of Ebola patients in Liberia are being isolated.
Each day the epidemic persists makes 70 percent more difficult to reach. More doctors, hospital beds and treatment centers will be needed, and more people must be educated about the disease. For every 30-day delay, the peak number of new daily cases triples, according to a model of the disease created by the CDC.
[snip chart]
In each of the three scenarios modeled in the chart above, 70 percent isolation is eventually reached and the outbreak is brought under control. The difference is how long it takes to initiate major interventions (building and staffing treatment centers, distributing supplies) and and how many lives are lost as a result.
Despite its reputation as a killer, Ebola isn’t very good at reproducing itself. The virus is spread through body fluids, not air, and it often kills patients before they have a chance to spread the disease widely. When 70 percent of patients are isolated, the disease no longer spreads fast enough to replace dying or recovering patients. It burns itself out.
All it takes is to break the epidemic is to reach that magic number. What makes the current outbreak so difficult is that it’s happening in war-impoverished countries that have no prior experience with Ebola and very few doctors and hospitals to start with. The size of the outbreak also puts it in uncharted territory.
The 1.4 million worst-case projection by the CDC, by the agency's own estimation, is “very unlikely.” It doesn’t account for major health interventions, which are already underway. For example, U.S. soldiers have started arriving in Liberia after U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to help build as many as 20 treatment centers, train about 500 health-care providers and send 3,000 troops to assist. The Pentagon may spend as much as $1 billion fighting the disease.
That’s a lot of numbers. Let’s hope they add up to 70.
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