Posted on 09/04/2014 12:43:46 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A study in the journal Science, released last week, shows that the Ebola strain spreading across Western Africa has undergone a surprisingly high amount of genetic drift during the current outbreak. Experts say the mutations could eventually make the virus harder to diagnose and perhaps treat with a new therapeutic, should one come along.
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, I wrote that in response to the crisis, the Obama administration has stressed that the disease is unlikely to spread inside America. We will certainly see cases diagnosed here, and perhaps even experience some isolated clusters of disease. For now, though, the administration’s assurances are generally correct: Health-care workers in advanced Western nations maintain infection controls that can curtail the spread of non-airborne diseases like Ebola.
But our relative comfort in the U.S. is based on our belief that our public health tools could easily contain a virus spread only through direct contact. That would change radically if Ebola were to alter its mode of spread. We know the virus is mutating. Could it adapt in a way that makes it airborne?
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
It seems to me that the real issue would be where the first case shows up. If it’s *one* case and they go to a hospital early on, etc., it shouldn’t be bad. But if that first patient on American soil goes traipsing through several airports while coughing, vomiting etc., they could infect a number of other people along the way, who would all go home to their communities . . . . That prospect make me nervous.
Is there a link to the story? Am not seeing story at link provided.
Ever read Richard Preston’s book “Hot Zone” ? It’s based upon a true story of Ebola virus going airborn in a primate clearing house in Restin VA.
It’s a good read.
The link took me to the Forbes website but the story was not there.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/09/03/can-ebola-go-airborne/
Wasted read. Just another person in denial.
Ebola attacks the liver in humans and is therefore in the blood stream and feces, but not in high concentrations in the lungs. But it is a rapid changing RNA sequence. This could get interesting if it gets into chickens like the Avian Influenza. Wonder what would happen if a bird has both diseases!!!
I have been reading that yes, ebola can indeed vaporize and be transported through the open air in mists and droplets. The catch is the virus would have to still be somewhat recently produced and still high in potency even in aerosol form. Nurse Whitebol, the american woman who has managed to recover from the worst of Ebola may have caught it that way. Keep in mind how powerfully efficient the sneeze can be of the average adult.
This is an excellent article excerpt:
Pig-to-monkey Ebola: is there something in the air?
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2012/11/19/pig-to-monkey-ebola-is-there-something-in-the-air/
Ebola has long been known to be a zoonotic virus–one which jumps between species. Though it took several decades to find evidence of Ebola virus in bats, these animals had previously been associated with human index cases of Ebola disease have worked in bat-infested warehouses or traveled to caves where bats roost. Non-human primates have also become infected with the virus, sometimes transmitting the virus to humans when killed primates are butchered for food. Ebola has also been suggested to infect dogs and other wild animals. However, livestock are a newer angle to Ebola virus ecology.
Ebola was first found in pigs in 2008 in the Philippines. This was the Reston virus, named after its discovery in imported Filipino monkeys in a facility in Reston, Virginia, in 1989. Though this virus spread among the captive monkeys, no humans came down with symptoms. However, follow-up studies showed that some humans did develop an immune response to the Reston virus–suggesting they had been infected, even if they didn’t realize it. At the time, there was suggestion that perhaps Reston might be spread via aerosol, as the virus appeared to spread amongst monkeys in two different rooms who did not come into physical contact with one another. However, this was not proven at the time and alternative explanations were possible.
Since then, two experimental studies have examined airborne transmission of Ebola via pigs.
The first study examined transmission of the Zaire strain of Ebola–the nastiest one, which can kill up to 90% of those infected–within laboratory pigs. Pigs were inoculated with the Zaire virus and housed with uninfected pigs, who were later tested and found to have acquired the virus. Interestingly, when the pigs got sick with Ebola Zaire, the symptoms were mainly respiratory and the virus replicated in the lungs. This was quite unlike what Zaire does in humans and our other primate cousins, where it’s a systemic disease and we can find virus in the blood. This suggests that pigs could be infected with even nasty types of Ebola, and we wouldn’t realize it.
Ebola has a mean virulence of 61%, killing a total 2603 out of 4235 people since records began. Virulence is the ‘case fatality rate’, the percentage of cases that lead to death. On this chart, color represents virulence from yellow (0% fatality) to red (100%).
The 2014 epidemic (outbreak 25) has killed more people than any other outbreak in history. But it’s not the most fatal: although it has the highest death toll and accounts for 44% of recorded cases, it’s ‘only’ killed 55% of those infected (1013/1848) and is orange on this chart.
With a 90% case fatality rate (128/143), the 2003 epidemic in Congo (outbreak 14) is the most virulent to date.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2014/08/13/ebola/
Any chance of a mutation so that it only effects Democrats?
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Particles from a sneeze can remain airborne for 24 hours.
EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE: OUTBREAK DEATHS BY SPECIES. Stream size is number of deaths per outbreak. Species: BDBV, Bundibugyo virus; EBOV, Ebola virus; SUDV, Sudan virus; TAFV, Taï Forest virus. (Data: WHO / CC BY: JV Chamary / Source: http://onforb.es/Y3YjoG)
Hat tip goes to ElenaM.
Oh, this outbreak is just as fatal as others. It’s an active outbreak so the number of new/total infected leads the number of deaths by 19 days, representing the 2-21 day incubation period before symptoms.
we can isolate people in rooms but I don’t think there is an legal way to keep them in that room, nor any legal way to prevent visitors without gowns or gloves from wandering in and out of that room, using the public restroom and water cooler....
ID50 for Ebola is 10 virons. It really doesn’t take much if it ends up inhaled or in an eye.
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