Posted on 08/03/2014 5:48:32 AM PDT by Covenantor
Outbreak Update
The World Health Organization, in partnership with the Ministries of Health in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria announced a cumulative total of 1323 suspect and confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) and 729 deaths, as of July 27, 2014. Of the 1323 clinical cases, 909 cases have been laboratory confirmed for Ebola virus infection.
In Guinea, 460 cases, including 339 fatal cases and 336 laboratory confirmations of EVD, were reported by the Ministry of Health of Guinea and WHO as of July 27, 2014. Active surveillance continues in Conakry, Guéckédou, Boffa, Fria, Siguiri, and Kourourssa Districts.
In Sierra Leone, WHO and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone reported a cumulative total of 533 suspect and confirmed cases of EHF as of July 27, 2014. Of these 533, 473 cases have been laboratory confirmed and 233 were fatal. Districts reporting clinical EVD patients include Kailahun, Kenema, Kambia, Port Loko, Bo and Western Area, which includes the capital, Freetown. More recently, Tonkolili, Bambali, Moyamba, and Bonthe Districts have also reported confirmed cases of EVD. Reports, investigations, and testing of suspect cases continue across the country.
As of July 27, 2014, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia and WHO reported 329 clinical cases of EVD, including 100 laboratory confirmations and 156 fatal cases. Suspect and confirmed cases since May have been reported from Lofa, Montserado, Margibi, and more recently, Bomi, Bong, Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties. Laboratory testing is being conducted in Monrovia.
In Nigeria, WHO and the Nigerian Ministry of Health reported one probable case as of July 27, 2014. This case has not yet been laboratory confirmed. CDC is in regular communication with all of the Ministries of Health (MOH), WHO, MSF, and other partners regarding the outbreak. Currently CDC has personnel in all three countries assisting the respective MOHs and the WHO-led international response to this Ebola outbreak. Based on reports from the Ministry of Heath of Guinea, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia, the Ministry of Health of Nigeria and WHO 29 July 2014.
...more info and links to previous updates at CDC site.
Not shaking in my boots at this time, but it has the potential to continue into new ground.
Where have you read that this Ebola outbreak has become airborne?
Thanks, well maybe just maybe instead of these countries fighting each other and living in squalor they could clean up their countries
Don’t know what GOPJ has run across, but I’ve seen several reports that it’s been transmitted by large droplets between lab animals. They were in close proximity but not in direct contact. As I understand it, this doesn’t mean the virus was floating around in the air for days, it means being in close proximity to the equivalent of sneezing.
I strongly suspect the infectious animals were in the severe symptoms stage, which in this country means they’d be in an intensive care ward of a hospital.
I am pretty sure every HCP out there is on the lookout for flu-type symptoms in anybody just returned from Africa, and that they’ll take immediate precautions.
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Sneezing in an elevator would qualify...
Water droplets from sneezing... not quite the same as airbourn. I’ll see if I can find the link.
It lives on surfaces for days.
One sneeze in an elevator would contaminate the elevator buttons for days.
The animals used in the study to infect were pigs. In pigs ebola is a respiratory illness they usually recover from. The pigs were doing what people with respiratory illnesses usually do. Sneezing, coughing.
This specific form of Ebola virus, no recent reports that it has become airborne; first reports on this Ebola outbreak suggested possible airborne
No recent report seen , as this would cause a more severe panic in the already infected areas.
(titled) " Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola" (dated:11/15/12)
< / http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20341423 >
"Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.
In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them.
The researchers say they believe that limited airborne transmission might be contributing to the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa...
Now, researchers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the country's Public Health Agency have shown that pigs infected with this form of Ebola
can pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact between the species.
In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier.
After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised.
One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.
One of the scientists involved is Dr Gary Kobinger from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada.
He told BBC News this was the most likely route of the infection
"But they can be absorbed in the airway and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think,
because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way."
It's insane. You'd think they'd be ramping containment efforts. Instead they make statements like "We can't prevent people without symptoms from traveling" and "Travel restrictions won't stop it from spreading.". Well no, not if you are only going to restrict those with obvious symptoms.
Thanks for the info.
A Freep article on 4/16/14 discusses coughing and the size of droplets remaining suspended in the air, depending on size :
< / http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3142204/posts >
and the artilcle further describes how long these droplets remain suspended in the air, and how droplets travel further than we think.
Perhaps the best way to describe my concerns is that while ebola is a spark, there is very little kindling here that could burst into fire. So many things go against there being a significant epidemic here that the odds are severely stacked against it.
Africa, on the other hand, has endless reasons for it to be a problem there. But even in Africa, its potential is limited. Were it a serious threat *there*, by now, millions of people would be sick and dying, not just a thousand and a third.
I like the thought problem that, if you had a billion people, and one million of them died every day, how long would it be before they all died? The easy answer is one thousand days. Or 2 years and about 9 months.
And there are about 7 billion people on Earth. To kill them all at 1 million a year, it would take 19 years and 3 months. Assuming nobody had any more children during that time.
I presume you meant "1 million a day".
“Never amounted to much of anything really . . .”
Some think otherwise:
http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/could_the_black_death_actually
If I read it correctly it's akin to cigarette or cigar smoke in relatively small space where the smoke swirls in the inital turbulence and resolves into a cloud. A cloud which is sustained for rather long periods of time as in a bar with several smokers.
Following that train of thought it may well be that in the open air there is quicker and higher dispersion of smaller contaminated droplets.
Search for the Ebola photos and you will see that many if not most of the field hospitals are very light gauge tents with plenty of air getting through.
If this is the case than it may well have been overlooked and underestimated as a mode of transmisability of this flavor of Ebola, and maybe previous ones, Reston standing out. An enclosed space may be the very worst place to be absent strict isolation protocols.
Now multiply the 36" by the factor 200 mentioned in your article we faced with an outer limit of an astonishing 600 feet, or two foot ball fields. How the hell do you test for that in labs?
My quick seat of the pants summary thought is that the lingering and dispersed cloud effect may explain the high casualty rate among the health workers.
Again I refer to the photos on the web. We see health workers being sprayed down with 10% bleach solutions (low velocity hand sprayers) before removing their PPE kit. How far removed are they from the infected patients? Do they remain within range of the "ebola mist cloud"? Seems like it from the photos doesn't it?
That's close enough for me to call it air borne.
I felt about the same about it. Airborne for minutes may not be the same as for hours in the case of influenza, but it still means that I can cough or sneeze it into the air, and someone who doesn’t touch me can still get it.
Yes. Though unlike Dr. Pianka, I do not think this would be a good thing.
This stuff can live for days, maybe 10 or more, on surfaces at room temperature.
It takes one (1) viron to infect.
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