Something in the article has made me wonder, does sweating underneath the biohazard suit somehow create a vector or otherwise aid in infection? I’d think that the salt present in sweat would help prevent infection but it seems as if there’s something about the suits themselves since all or practically all westerners infected have been wearing them. Heat and humidity beneath the impervious fabric might be it.
I imagine it makes a nice stew for any virus that hit the skin’s surface to spread further. Dry skin seems to me to be a harsher environment for the virus.
They’ve been wearing them with gaps and openings.
Yes heat and humidity affect life expectancy of the virus.
However , body sweat, so highly concentrated with salt, I would not expect the virus to live , or be vibrant, under those conditions.
However , it should be noted that sweat and other bodily fluids could lead to a transfer of bodily fluids (fomites), which could lead to infections.
It should be noted that MSF only allows their doctors to remain in PPE for 45 minutes at a time, minmizing sweat build-up.
This heat and humidity thing, would make you wonder if a mosquito landed on a Ebola person, then launched to you sixty feet away and landed....could he carry the virus?
If there are openings, as there were when they didn’t cover their necks, absolutely, yes. The heat and humidity alone shouldn’t ge an issue *if* they were properly suited.
But we know for a fact that they were not properly suited because their necks were exposed.
Their sweat would carry his bodily fluids off their necks and down into the suit where they would contact it when the suit came off.
That is almost certainly why two of his nurses have had Ebola. The CDC didn’t give them the information they needed to not get sick. This is well known information, by the way. Nothing new. Nothing they shouldn’t have had in place.
I’d think that administering Ebola antibodies to health care workers interacting directly with Ebola patients might be a wise move. ... Have a small crew of workers unlikely to get sick even if accidentally infected.
Ebola survivors are a source of the antibodies...and there is also that Zmapp stuff that contains three different Ebola antibodies.