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“I find that amusing, in that two of the posters that I directed that comment toward, both responded with a WTF reply.”

And yet you failed to ping them as well.

Rude.

My fears are for those in West Africa. They do NOT need this right now (or ever). Their economies are on a shoestring to begin with what with corrupt elites and tribal conflicts. School is out for the forseeable future in several of these countries. Because THAT will help them in the future, right? /s

I grew up there. I have great affection for the people we knew in West AFrica. Unlike some on this board who think they are all backwards, unintelligent and deserve to die for those characteristics.

And had Patrick Sawyer started on his journey a few hours earlier he could easily have connected to a flight (direct) to Houston or Atlanta. And then it would have been here. And we’d have the nearly half dozen primary contacts dead at this point.

Based on this -- . http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/22-august-2014/en/ . In parts of Liberia, a phenomenon is occurring that has never before been seen in an Ebola outbreak. As soon as a new treatment facility is opened, it is immediately filled with patients, many of whom were not previously identified. This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system. . For example in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, an Ebola treatment centre with 20 beds, which opened last week, was immediately overwhelmed with more than 70 patients. An additional problem is the existence of numerous “shadow-zones”. These are villages with rumours of cases and deaths, with a strong suspicion of Ebola as the cause, that cannot be investigated because of community resistance or lack of adequate staff and vehicles. In some areas, most notably Monrovia, virtually all health services have shut down. . This lack of access to any form of health care contributed to the mobbing incident on Saturday at an Ebola holding facility in the West Point township, Liberia’s most disease-prone slum. . I think we have to say Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) is indeed beyond "control." Based on the WHO report text clipped above, the number of infected and dead may be off by as much as an order of magnitude. . Think 20,000 and not 2,000 infected. . Liberia's national government's action to wall off the West Point Slum in Monrovia, with between 50,000 and 75,000 inside having no food, no clean water or sewage and no health care, speaks of a future death toll there in the tens of thousands in a few weeks. The pictures stringers for the western Media take from West Point, Monrovia in 10 weeks are going to be that of Mega-death on Earth. . That will be when the real world panic will hit.

Well, although anything can happen at anytime, (chaos theory), this disease has been ravaging West Africa and some other areas for a lot longer then 1976.

It’s estimated that this disease has roots that go back 1000’s of years. It’s home is in Africa for reasons, many of which have to do with the ecology and societies.

It is therefore highly unlikely to take root anywhere else.

Having said that, a cluster certainly could attempt to start anywhere. But it would not get very far and when it burns out, it would not likely happen again in the same place, similar to lightning.

Thus I do not have any fears of that nature. I actually would fear the common Flu more than this as it kills many multiples more people.

I have given much thought to eradicating the disease. I think it’s possible with either a vaccine for humans, or it could be attacked from the animal side (carriers) or both.

But we are not there yet.

I think perhaps we might get there after this outbreak is over....whenever that occurs..as once the death toll exceeds 1000 on a outbreak, there seems to be more attention given to the cause. Whatever that may be, but even so it’s going to take a lot of work to develop a vaccine for humans..which is why I mentioned attacking it from the animal side.

It does seem that we have developed some general drugs to beat the disease using the bodies own immune system, but nothing yet to stop it before it starts..

We have and are doing that for a number of carried diseases on the animal side. It requires baits and a lot of airplanes.(generally used),as well as a biological agent.

I suspect humans would require a live virus immunization, and based on what has happened with other similar live virus immunizations, I doubt the general public in Africa would allow it to be used on them.

So it’s a dilemma without a answer right now..