Five? FIVE?!
And they are heavily exposed to the disease in their work!
I’m getting the distinct impression that this is much ado about nothing, unless you are in a high risk area.
Yes 5 doctors trained on how to protect themselves and with appropriate protective equipment picked up despite their training and equipment.
Sure its nothing to worry about.
What's intriguing is that these deaths are to medical workers. The virus must have morphed enough so that the precautions that have been used are no longer adequate.
I agree that we don't have to worry too much if we know the rules to avoid infection. But the rules have changed.
"Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, aged 40, died in a Lagos hospital on 25 July, five days after arriving at the city's airport visibly unwell on a flight from the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
The four other deaths included two medical workers, a doctor and a nurse, who had treated the Liberian finance ministry consultant, and an official from the west African regional bloc, ECOWAS, who picked him up from the airport.
Well let's think about that statement.
They have not released who all the people were that have contacted Ebola IN NIGERIA(let's not worry about who Sawyer gave it to before boarding that plane) but we do know that a passenger on the plane with him got it and there was one story that the cab driver got it(whether the cab driver part is true or not have no clue)(both not medical professions). Then think about the fact a nurse not showing symptoms passed it on to another patient (something impossible if you listen to the CDC).
Now think about the impossibly scary fact of how many people in Nigeria this guy gave Ebola(and that does not count who he gave it to before getting to Nigeria) and compare it to the average number of people past deadly pandemic diseases a single carrier is on average expected to infect historically and this thing should really raise eyebrows....if logic is the goal.
Haven’t been paying much attention to the characteristics of this new strain of ebola, timeline and duration of this outbreak, or geography, have you?
All of Nigeria is a high risk area. Especially Lagos. This is a very crowded city with people getting sick of hundreds of communicable diseases and dropping dead every day.
This guy was walking by hundreds of people, on the plane, in the airport, touching objects that others later touched, etc. The reported cases are known because these people were known to have risked contamination and were tracked. Given who they were and the small pool that probably were tracked, the rate of transmission is incredible.
I think there is an extremely high risk that this disease is spreading unreported or poorly reported. Potentially a disaster of tremendous proportions.
These are, as I understand it, five who were exposed by American Patrick Sawyer, who brought the disease to Nigeria as a traveler. Not a high risk area until Sawyer arrived ill.
Five deaths from exposure to one patient is, indeed, alarming.
The most striken area is in Liberia and Sierra Leone, IIRC.
Keep an eye on it. The incubation period is a few weeks. Those give could have infected another 25 easy—and they are wandering around with the virus growing inside of them.
In addition, it hasnt been three weeks since Patrick the Infected strolled through town.
Nigeria is the lynch pin here...if it breaks out there it will go global. There are too many Western Oil folks in Nigeria to contain it. They have the means and the money to get out. And they will be bringing home more than postcards.