Interesting article at link.
It’s surprising how reluctant that so many in the medical community are to admit how little they really know about all the filoviruses and Ebola in particular. They’ve taken past studies and research, made it accepted wisdom and by golly they’re sticking with it sometimes despite contrary information from field laboratories in West Africa.
It strikes me that up until now there has been little actual lab research done on the various strains of Ebola, understandable given it’s lethality and paucity of viable samples and little or no profit at the end of the road. Until the scale of this epidemic became apparent.
Aside from the CDC, USAMRIID, and NIH it’s difficult to locate BSL-4 research labs here. In Europe I know the Pasteur Institute has been involved, Germany has a lab and then...?
How much of the body of published Ebola papers is from direct research? I know, it’s a rhetorical question.
It's not surprising. Policymakers demand certainty. They also sign the checks.
CDC made two bad mistakes in July, they got behind the curve, and they're having trouble catching up.
The two mistakes were the assertion that any hospital in the US with private rooms could safely care for Ebola patients, and the assertion that advanced PPE was needed in Africa because, well, just because - TIA.
The second mistake was really bad, because to led to two infections in American nurses.
I'm convinced they made these two mistakes because if they said otherwise, Obama's expedited visas and open borders would look bad.
Here’s another good one, narrative rather than science paper but still quite informative.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars