Marburg Surveillance Project

Various ^ | May 4, 2005 | Vanity

[Judith Anne]

Welcome to the Marburg Surveillance Project.

This thread will be used for all of the latest Marburg Outbreak News and comments. This is the place to post all comments about the Marburg outbreak, all articles and links to articles about the Marburg outbreak.

We're going to use just one thread instead of having to go from article to article as we have in the past. We'll use this thread as long as we can.

[Judith Anne]

Check the dates and reported fatalities...???? Did we know this then or are the numbers we've been working with old?

There was an "administrative reclassification" of the numbers on or about April 25, 2005. There may also have been an "administrative reclassification" of numbers earlier...

[Judith Anne]

Yes, here's the article from your link:

Luanda - People or groups linked to the al-Qaeda terror network are trying to covertly enter the southern African nation of Angola, an official said on radio Thursday, adding that the government was on alert.

The Ecclesia radio station quoted Constantino Vitiaka, head of information at the national intelligence services, as saying that there was "an attempt by elements linked to al-Qaeda to come into Angola, especially through Moslem NGOs."

He said the government was keeping a close watch to see if terrorist groups were being formed, the Roman Catholic radio station reported.

Angola is emerging from a bitter 27-year civil war which ended in April 2002.

[rejoicing]

Please put me on your ping list.

[Judith Anne]

Please add rejoicing to your Marburg list; I already did.

Thanks.

[redgolum]

More case will still emerge if your theory was correct. These suicide biological bombers could use a locally held viral resource and send "volunteers" into population areas to interact with the local population with a view to infecting them.

In that case, I hope that TSA is keeping a close eye on anyone returning from the Angolan oil fields. As stated before, there are a number of direct flights to the US.

[Kelly_2000]

"Not a dead end, an open question. ;-D"

Glass is half full kind of girl, unlike cynical old me LOL ;-)

[redgolum]

If I can think this, a little old hillbilly woman posting on a message board, then US authorities can think this as well. I hope it has occurred to someone...

Not necessarily. Remember the CIA missed the fall of the Berlin wall until they saw it on CNN. Suicide biological bombs are not taken that seriously by many officials. Heck, suicide bombers not on airlines are not even something they take that seriously.

The first sign would be an outbreak in a non African country.

[Kelly_2000]

They wouldn't have to come from Angola though that is the problem

[redgolum]

Correct, and that was my (badly stated) point.

It all depends on.
1. If "they" have a stable source of the virus that can be stored and then released.
2. If they don't, then they have a week to get to the target from the Angolan sites.

If 1 we won't know until cases show up in New York and Chicago. If 2, I would expect some sort of localized out break in a way point area. For instance in Europe or northern Africa.

[Kelly_2000]

"If 1 we won't know until cases show up in New York and Chicago."

Agreed

[Owen]

Y'all are thinking small. A suicidal vector can get infected locally, leave the area, but not all the way to Europe or the US. Instead, the person goes into a room with 10 other wacko suicides and extract some blood via hypodermic, to inject in the ten. Then the ten leave for major world cities, arrive at airports and start wandering around overdressed, sweating and touching people at the airport.

I would suspect this won't be a great way to propagate things, and maybe only 20% effective, but you can probably touch a few thousand people in one day at an airport -- and that would be 50 infections, all of whom would do a lower number of touches before they are symptomatic and collapse.

I'd guess one vector in an airport could kill a few hundred each -- and shut down every airport in the western world.

[Judith Anne]

My scenario involves a diplomatic visitor from Angola to the UN, infected, asymptomatic, arrives in NYC, goes about business, leaves vial of his blood for other sleeper agents to infect selves with and move to other cities.

Gets sick, goes to Dr., sits around in waiting room, is sent to hospital ER, denies travel to Africa, infects multiple people, is admitted to a med-surg unit, infects more people, finally hemorrhages and dies, leaving a HUGE trail of infected people.

Multiple cities then follow...

[null and void]

Yep. Or imagine a barely symptomatic suicide bomber in a crowded area. He/she gets everyone who's injured, a majority of first responders, a majority of medical personnel, a significant number of other patients and visitors who happen to be in the same hospital/ER where the initial victims are treated, and anyone who inhaled vaporized bomber.

Instant 72 virgins and 18 young boy sex toys in the hereafter, and he doesn't even have to suffer the full course of the disease.

[Judith Anne]

Criminy!

Langley needs us. ;-D

[null and void]

Hmmmm. I could use a good retirement plan...

[Judith Anne]

Okay, let's just back away from AlQaeda for a minute, and ask ourselves:

Is there any way this could occur in nature, with no human intervention?

[redgolum]

CNN finally has a story about the Marburg outbreak.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/05/16/marburg.angola.reut/index.html

Forget the rules about posting CNN stories, so will only do the link. They mention 336 cases.

[null and void]

Absolutely!

But where's the fun in thinking about that?

[null and void]

Not bad. We beat the MSM/CNN by 49 days. I wonder if that is a record?

[Judith Anne]

It's the same as the WHO press release posted above.

I'm going to go see if I can learn anything about this, from the linked article:

A total of 123 people died in a Marburg epidemic in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998-2000.