Posted on 12/29/2001 12:54:28 PM PST by Neuromancer
Saturday December 29 12:30 PM ET
Doctors Fear Ebola is Spreading
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
MAKOKOU, Gabon (AP) - Doctors confirmed Saturday that a 16-year-old boy has the Ebola (news - web sites) virus and another patient has similar symptoms, prompting fears the deadly disease is continuing to spread in Central Africa.
The boy was admitted last week at Makokou's hospital and tested for Ebola, which already has killed 21 people in Gabon and neighboring Republic of Congo, regional health director Prosper Abessolo Mengue said Saturday.
Another patient was admitted Friday with symptoms of the disease, including fever, diarrhea and vomiting. Neither patient is known to have had contact with any of the previous victims, raising the possibility of still more unidentified cases.
``This is very worrying,´´ said Dr. Julien Meyong, medical chief of the hospital in Makokou, about 360 miles east of the capital, Libreville. Medical officials have identified 18 Ebola cases in this remote part of Gabon since the outbreak began in late October, according to government figures. Fifteen of those patients died.
Twelve more suspected cases have been identified in neighboring Republic of Congo, with six deaths. The affected region is one of the most thinly populated in both countries. It is covered by vast forests with tiny villages inhabited by Pygmies and other hunter tribes.
A team of medical experts from the World Health Organization (news - web sites) and Gabon's health ministry arrived in December and has been working with military doctors to trace victims, treat patients and educate people about the disease.
Actually, the pros from the WHO are engaging in far more important activities than the mere eradication of disease----We Are The World--We Are The Children
Apparently, it's much easier (and safer) to trace down law-abiding gun-owners (most of who are middle-aged white males with decent jobs and stable home addresses) who register their purchases and who aren't prepared to die in a Jihad when the Federal agents come knocking to take aay their now "illegal" gun. So that's the sort of stuff they prefer to do.
I think they have their priorities screwed up exactly 180 degrees - but I don't accept the explaination that most people have - that they're stupid.
They are certainly not that stupid (if they were actually as stupid as they appear to be, they would not be able to get any convictions in court)...
Let me explain:
Any terrorist activity that kills innocent Americans (mostly civilians and whatever police and government employees happen to be in the immediate area), while causing a terrible amout of fear and grief, is not going to bring our country down economically, politically or militaritly.
Now, a whole lot of armed citizens who might decide to get uppity one day is another matter...
That is, I believe, why they still have their sights set on the "Domestic Right Wing Extremist" as the source for the Antrax letters mailed to Congress...
They full well know that some Joe six-pack redneck militiaman did not fly to Europe to mail some of those letters - but they want to have a reason to concentrate on who they believe is their real long term threat.
They have the solutions to terrorism - and it's all about less freedom for (the illusion of) more security. More and better guns for all of them, less and finally no guns for the citizens that they say they are trying to "protect".
They certainly don't want a bunch of people who think they have a better idea on how to run a country breaking away from the U.S. one day down the road saying something like "Come to Free America" - our pilots and flight attendants are armed - and since everyone can carry a gun anywhere, you won't have to submit to the random government checkpoints and government-mandated full-body cavity searches over here...
That is why I think we'll see further instances of terrorism - sure, the latest Semtex-in-the-tennis-shoe trick didn't work, but sooner or later someone is going to release Smallpox (or Ebola, or something that spreads fast and is fatal) or detonate a dirty nuke (hot radioactive waste material packed inside a van loaded with dynamite or similar explosive).
I'd suggest having of having a minimum of a 2 week to 2 month supply of food, water, medicines, toliet paper, etc. stored on hand, at all times because there's nothing you can do in those instances except stay inside in the hope of not getting a dose of the bug or the radiation going around...
I believe that more incidents are going to happen again in the future, because "they" who are supossed to "protect" us apparently care more about keeping us from having guns than about preventing further terrorist incidents...
Here is an e-mail I received from a medical organization called "ProMed". This is it with the only modification being the deletion of references to earlier articles - took up too much space.
ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases
Date: Fri 21 Dec 2001
From: William Karesh (edited)
Report from an on-site team in Gabon
I would agree with submitted comments that say gorillas (western lowland gorillas in this instance) are unlikely to have been infected with Ebola virus by eating duikers or other antelopes.
We are working on-site with personnel from the Centre International de Recherches Medicales de Franceville (CIRMF) and Ecosystemes Forestiers d'Afrique Centrale (ECOFAC) to survey villagers about wildlife mortalities and contacts, and to confirm the reports by locating the carcasses where possible.
Currently, we have verbal reports from local people of 25 gorillas seen dead at various forested sites. Additionally, local hunters and villagers are reporting finding dead chimps, guenons, porcupines, pangolins, black-backed duikers, genets, rodents, a "snake", and tortoises. This in itself is a rare observation. Local villagers and hunters say that finding so many dead animals in a short period is unusual. From our work in Central African forests, we concur. One group of hunters said they watched a duiker eating or licking a dead gorilla (In zoos, duikers are known to eat small amounts of meat if available).
Teams sent in to corroborate stories have found the remains of one gorilla group (2 large males, 2 females, and an infant) together. At another location, a report led us to a carcass of a adult male gorilla and samples were collected for laboratory confirmation.
**********In a village near the border, 4 people came in contact with a dead gorilla and collected body parts for consumption. One of these people has died and the 3 others are ill. I have no information about the laboratory confirmation of [infection in] these people, but 2 are reportedly recovering and the fourth apparently remains unwell. *********A domestic goat living with them died bleeding from the nose. Postmortem samples were collected from this goat. All animal samples collected to date have been submitted to our collaborators at the CIRMF, Gabon.
To the best of our knowledge, the 4 humans mentioned above are not linked to any of the other human cases (which appear to have direct or indirect contact paths leading back to the illness and death of one man in Gabon).
William B Karesh, DVM
Department Head
Field Veterinary Program
Wildlife Conservation Society
2300 Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10460 USA
well....well....what about the liberals civil rights? They'll call the ACLU. Puke!!!
Now if it mutates, then we have a problem...
My wife read 'AS' and said it was one on the best books she has read
She doesn't get a chance to read much, eh? ;-)
Hey, I got it from Tom.
I would put the chances of Ebola-as-terroist-threat to be absolutely zero. There's simply no way to even handle the stuff outside of a level 5 biocontainment field without infecting yourself. It's way WAY out of Al-Qaida's league. It's even out of Iraq's league. Anyone who started playing with it would be dead before they even got to square one. If our enemies can't do it with anthrax or smallpox, there's no way they can do it with Ebola.
The only even slightly possible scenario I could think of would be another Al-Qaida suicide nutcase going to Africa, intentionally infecting himself, and then hopping on the next flight to the US. And even that wouldn't work, because he'd show symptoms long before the plane ever made it here, and the plane would simply be quarantined. He wouldn't even end up infecting more than a couple of people on the plane, either, unless he started running up and down the aisles licking people, which is a great way to get yourself tied up and/or killed in and of itself these days.
I'm not even totally convinced that Ebola Reston is truly airborne. I think it's quite possible they simply missed some physical contact between parties somewhere in their investigation.
NOT TRUE. It is spread by contact with body fluids.
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