I’ve been watching Ebola with concern. I hoped we’d have more time. We can still gain control but every week matters. What we do now will be so much easier than what we have to do if we leave it to run.
The summary: The WHO warns that there may be 10,000 new cases a week in West Africa by early December. Can you imagine trying to set up new beds to cope with that each week? Meanwhile the Centre for Infectious Disease Research has advised the CDC that the evidence suggests some airborne spread of Ebola is occurring, which may explain the toll on health workers. Sadly a second health-worker has also been infected with Ebola in Texas (and she was on flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas the day before – the CDC wants passengers to call.). Sixteen members of Doctors without Borders have been afflicted, and nine have died. That team deserves medals more help.
There are different versions of airborne infections, hopefully this is in the “only just airborne” category. Just being barely airborne is not the same as, say, being spread like measles. Nonetheless, the game has changed. Healthworkers need even more serious, much more expensive masks.
Update to clarify: There is a spectrum of “airborne spreadability”, and it may be that the virus has not suddenly changed, but has been spreading slightly through an airborne mechanism for months. If that is the case, the new awareness is good news and will help. As reader Lawrence Cooper points out, it’s rare or even unknown for viruses to transform completely from one form of transmission to another. On the other hand it’s well known that the evolution of viruses will generally make them less deadly, but easier to spread. This is what I’m talking about. With mortality running at 70%, there is still a lot of room to reduce the death rate but ultimately kill a lot more people. There is some very ugly maths under those curves. Evolution is inevitable: more infections means more mutations. Virologists are debating it here.
We are very fortunate the virus doesn’t spread until people show symptoms. There don’t seem to be pockets of new mysterious outbreaks that spring up unexplained, which would happen if the virus was truly airborne. But it was very odd that healthworkers in close contact to patients and in protective gear were getting sick so often.
On the plus side, the outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal may get cleared as officially over by October 20. Those two countries appear to have overcome their outbreaks. At least one epidemiologist departing Liberia sees hope for controlling the infection in the region where it first broke out. There is hope, but very little time to get control in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Also on the plus side, there are several promising vaccines in development, which I feel optimistic about (trials have started though delays are frustrating). Blood from survivors contains antibodies that could save people, and seem to be helping the nurse in Texas (I wonder why aren’t we doing more of this for health-care workers everywhere?). Mark Zuckerberg has donated $25 million to the Ebola cause. Good on him.
Right now, the most useful thing we can do is help our bureaucrats to understand how fast this could get beyond control. This is about making sure there is not a modern plague. We can do it, but we need to do it in Africa. The Ro (Reproduction number) is estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.2 at the moment. If we can bring the Ro down below one, the disease will most likely gradually fizzle out. Simple measures can still make a big difference in a land where doctors are rare.
It’s Airborne: Breitbart reports
Medical Research Org CIDRAP: Ebola Transmittable by Air
The highly respected Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota just advised the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles,” including exhaled breath.
CIDRAP is warning that surgical facemasks do not prevent transmission of Ebola, and healthcare professionals (HCP) must immediately be outfitted with full-hooded protective gear and powered air-purifying respirators.
CIDRAP since 2001 has been a global leader in addressing public health preparedness regarding emerging infectious diseases and bio-security responses. CIDRAP’s opinion on Ebola virus is there are “No proven pre- or post-exposure treatment modalities;” “A high case-fatality rate;” and “Unclear modes of transmission.”
10,0000 new cases a week by December The Guardian:
WHO warns 10,000 new cases of Ebola a week are possible
UN agency says fatality rate at 70% and that ‘a lot more people will die’ unless world steps up its response to crisis
The Ebola outbreak could grow to 10,000 new cases a week within two months, the World Health Organisation warned on Tuesday as the death toll from the virus reached 4,447 people, nearly all of them in west Africa.Dr Bruce Aylward, the WHO assistant director-general, told a news conference in Geneva that the number of new cases was likely to be between 5,000 and 10,000 a week by early December.
WHO’s regular updates show that deaths have resulted from 4,447 of the 8,914 reported cases, but Aylward said that any assumption that the death rate was 50% would be wrong. He put the death rate at 70% because many deaths are not reported or recorded officially.
Where detailed investigations have been carried out, it was clear that only 30% of people were surviving, he said, adding that the figure was almost exactly the same in the three hardest hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “This is a high-mortality disease in any circumstances but particularly in these places,” said Aylward.
The toll on Doctors without Borders JEMS:
These people are angels.
16 Members of Doctors Without Borders Infected with Ebola, Nine Dead
Workers have had inadequate help from international community
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died.
Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg Tuesday, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa Sharon Ekambaram said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community.
“Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?” said Ekambaram who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. “We’ve all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground.”
Four of the organization’s medical workers who had just returned from Sierra Leone and Liberia said they were frustrated, “chasing after the curve of the outbreak,” according to Jens Pederson, the aid organization’s humanitarian affairs adviser.
“To manage Ebola is not rocket science. It’s very basic infection control and very basic protection of staff,” said Pederson who said clean water, chlorine and soap were enough to disinfect an affected area.
2nd health care worker tests positive for Ebola at Dallas hospital
A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola, health officials said Wednesday — casting further doubt on the hospital’s ability to handle Ebola and protect employees.
The worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated, health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said.
The preliminary Ebola test was done late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and the results came back around midnight. A second test will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
I’ll be back to add images and more information, and as much good news as I can find.
Matt Ridley wrote a good article in The Australian. “Beat Ebola or face a pandemic as bad as the Black Death “
Sources: US Dept of Health — Information | Science Mag | Clinical features | Genome Ebola Portal | Timeline | Projection | CDC on Ebola | Twitter #ebola |
Dig deep, Boys and Girls. Climate Change Wars pale into insignificance compared with the Ebola threat. Doctors Without Borders need our assistance.
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To compare Climate Change to Ebola threat is to compare a smoking burnt out match to the sun.
Meanwhile, the POTUS is meeting with his cabinet in a pretense that he really cares. Actually, he is pretending to do something real to stem the tide of Ebola infections. His prancing, dancing, posturing, and pontificating will fail exactly like everything else our government does. It too will be a monumental failure for those who want to live free and thrive.
Close the borders PERIOD! Require any new entry in the US to live in secure quarantine for three weeks minimum before entry into the US. Then only if they show no signs of infection. All without respect to color, religion, national origin, social, or political status. Oh yes, add age, gender and sexual orientation to the list. We want to be politically correct, don’t we?
If this had been done at the start, the crises would have not gotten off the ground. Now it is set to explode into something really horrifying no matter what is done. Our government is going to lurch from infallible sets of rules that don’t work to other infallible sets of rules that won’t work either. I would be a bad horror movie plot if it weren’t for real.
It is the same old wait and don’t do anything real until it is such a huge crisis that nothing can be done. Then clamp down, apply totalitarian top down command and control, and prohibit anyone from doing anything without permission. Then don’t give anyone permission except the favored insiders. Sadly, this looks to be the plan from the get go. The plan is working so far.
Either that or our leaders are totally insane and incompetent. More likely, they are insane, incompetent, AND malevolent.
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But if you closed the borders, you would stop Obamas promised “transformation of America” – along the lines of deliberately letting in illegals who carry all sorts of new viruses etc.
/sarc
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The House of Representatives began hearings on ebola today (16th here). The Senate, of course, never will. But the house is ripping into the CDC, NIH and others. And nothing will change.
Up until I couldn’t stand to watch any longer it was politics per usual.
Ebola is now loose in North America and no one knows what to do about it.
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The BMJ thinks not,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/03/lunacy-from-british-doctors-climate-change-is-worse-than-ebola/
but Climate Change is, of course, making it worse.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/03/lunacy-from-british-doctors-climate-change-is-worse-than-ebola/
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Bugger. Second link should be
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/07/told-ya-so-washington-post-links-ebola-to-climate-change/
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If only some of the money that we are currently wasting on Climate Change and Alternative Energy could be realocated to the Ebola effort they should have plently
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As many know, relying on the MSM for information can be a problem. As a sceptic, I feel the need to look at alternative opinions. Not to say they are correct, but always worth investigating…
http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/
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I’d agree…the MSM is so tightly controlled & censored. The gummint controls the disinfo it diseeminates very tightly.
While many alt sites are questionable, I’ve found wide reading often gives a better picture from less biased or unbiased sources. Socuial media also has its place ( as does cheap sat phones ) for getting info in.
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The MSM doesn’t need to be controlled or censored.
We have a lot of youngish people wandering around with arts degrees, but little ability to get a real job, so they drift into some form of writing, for a living. A proportion of those, the ones that can’t write advertising blurb, will end up as “reporters” in the media.
Their job is to turn up at press “conferences” (where there is very little conferring), pick up the press release, do a quick precis, and file their “copy” by lunch time. They can then spend the rest of the day in the pub.
They are not controlled, nor censored, they are merely incompetent.
You are correct in saying that the government controls the message. But that is not a new phenomena. Alexander the Great had very clever scribes, which was why everybody believed he was “great”.
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RW
A very accurate but depressing summary of modern? civilisation.
KK
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I’d wondered about this. If it’s present in sweat and saliva it’s going to be present in the microscopic droplets in the air just from movement of the patient, let alone coughing and sneezing.
It appears that the current guidelines for hospitals don’t always mandate the use of a respirator (laboratories do), just a face mask and goggles or visor
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That is true of current CDC recommendations. They say N95 masks are adequate. They cost a few dollars. http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/index.html
The removal of gear does not look strict to me. Those gloves would be contaminated and medical staff risk touching their face when removing the mask or goggles.
I read they are moving to a two person form of removal… paired. Hopefully this will protect the workers.
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Even when I dealt with something as non-lethal as poison Ivy I used two pairs of gloves. How else are you going to prevent contamination?
Remove outer layer including boots with the coveralls and work gloves going straight into the washing machine. WASH the second set of (rubber) gloves then use them to remove second layer of clothing placing straight into the washing machine. WASH the gloves again and finally take them off. In this case boots = Booties and washing machine = incinerator
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with this or a similar method and it should be a written SOP taught to nurses in school or in the first weeks of training after hire.
The USA is completely wrapped in red tape at this point so there is ZERO reason this SOP is not readily available. Heck don’t these people have access to an internet? a telephone?
http://www.safetysourceinc.com/AdvSearch/Section/Hazmat_Suits_110490
Call the 800 number and ask for procedure or get Dupont’s number and call them.
(I am very allergic and also a chemist.)
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During my chemical career I’ve worked with a few compounds that are very good training aids for proper use of personal-protective equipment for spills and splashes. These were compounds that were nearly colorless yet developed colour after a few hours later after exposure to air.
Where the skin and other objects had come into contact with the compound, even small amounts left very dark stains. Best of all, these clearly indicated where an imperfect job of cleaning a surface had merely served to spread the compound over a wider area. Very instructive!
Some vesicants taught a harsher lesson. One of them (4-bromo-crotonic acid) we used to call “bromo-Bubonic acid”.
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The double up idea is fine except its too damn hot to be practical.This virus has a history of rapid mutation.As germerphobe from wayback I read The Hot Zone years ago.
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The problem with that plan is what happens to the last person left after everyone else has had their protective gear “safely” removed? How does he safely take off his protective and highly contaminated gear? He doesn’t. That is unless someone has invented an infallible biological decontamination chamber and uses it.
The only thing I know that really works and isn’t science fiction is a crematorium. Unfortunately, the survival rate for those decontaminated in it is zero. Compared to that a 10% to 30% chance of survival from an Ebola infection looks pretty good.
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Not much if the last person is this lady.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/liberian-ebola-survivor-now-comforts-other-patients-1413301824
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That is why you use two sets of clothing and wash in between. Clorox bleach kills the stuff BTW.
The TRAINED staff in the four biohazard equipped hospitals has the correct protocol worked out. So why were they not on the ground in Dallas or at least in phone contact with the director?
The USA is NOT the boonies of Africa. We do have telephones and e-mail and FAX for instant communication.
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Basic stuff like a metho spray/shower to wash peoples gear and boots would be simple, cheap and pretty effective I’d have thought….just dont light a match….
Metho is wonderful stuff.
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So is food grade hydrogen peroxide.
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Straying OT but have you seen “The Horseman on the Roof” ? A doctor in the 1600s knows that alcohol is good for cleaning the hands ( to try and limit the spread of the Plague I think ) and in a very genuine looking scene he pours some over a young woman’s hands but he set it alight and she looks aghast and shakes her hands wildly.
Me being inquistive, thought I’d try it, telling myself that the evaporative cooling would off-set the radiant energy to my skin.
Not to be recommended without a bucket of water close to hand(s) !
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Jo,
May I say a big thank-you for keeping me up-to-date with this worrisome situation. Much appreciated.
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I will second that.
It is a real pain to sort out all the fact from the fantasy in the information flying around. Even when there are direct interviews with knowledgeable people you still get the slant the MSM wants and the rest ends up on the cutting floor.
Skeptic sites with a high percentage of scientists and engineers are good at doing the sorting thank goodness.
So thank you Jo for covering this and for the rest of the scientists for chiming in.
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The Ebola virus is not airborne. It is not close to going airborne. We have to stop giving in to hysteria. No known virus has every switched modes, i.e. contact to airborne. For instance let’s take the AIDS virus. It mutates 100s of times as much as flu – it has never become airborne.
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I just love your confidence. Let me ask you, would you put your life on the line based on your belief?
Because that is what you are suggesting others do.
They do not know how the health workers in Africa, USA and Spain have become infected with the current protocols based on what you are so off handidly stating as a fact.
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I suspect you’re right but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. It semms possible to me there were always strains of Ebola that were (mildly) airborne, but nobody noticed while they were only killing Africans.
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Transmission of Ebola between chimps is airborne. Also hundreds of health workers have been infected even though they would have been using appropriate clothing for how Ebola is normally transmitted. It is unlikely they were all clumsy. The CDC has suggested that the two nurses in Texas were also clumsy and exposed themselves to the virus.
The CDC seem to be in full agreement with you and simply refuses to believe it can be airborne, however given the number of health workers infected one must ASSUME it is airborne whether it is true or not. This is a simple risk analysis – if they are wrong the results are disastrous.
On the paranoid side – when I first started looking up Ebola I came across a speech by a professor some years ago. He was an environmentalist who, like many others, felt the human population was too large and needed to be radically reduced. He said that the method he would choose would be airborne Ebola. He was wildly applauded. One thought which passed through my mind was whether somebody took up his idea.
Another paranoid idea I had, and I have seen one article suggesting this, is that terrorists could spread the virus deliberately. I have no idea if the virus can exist outside the body for any length of time so apart from deliberate self-infection I am not sure how the virus could be spread.
If Nigeria has truly conquered the outbreak then it is extremely good news as it implies it can be dealt with and it is not the end of the world as we know it. Or they could just be saying that to minimise any economic fallout.
I will only start feeling relieved when the number of new infections stops being exponential and levels off or hopefully starts falling.
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There are , it seems, many within the Establishment that think similar to this professor.
My experince being accidentally very close to them for a short while only further reinforced the opinions that the higher people are up in the Establishment the more demented and power crazed they seem. The influence of Occult religious views is also apparently quite strong, and what people generally think of as “Black Magick” is, it seems, present.
It is entirely feasible that the NWO does exist. The existence of paedophile rings within high levels of society also add credence to a very dark “force” that seems to operate at this level. This isnt to say that everyone in a position of power is corrupt or plain evil, far from it, however you would be foolish to discount a clear and present maevolent influence.
Over a period of time, watch key people in postions of power and who they support. Bill & Melinda come to mind.
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Dr. Roy Spencer is a little concerned –
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/how-safe-is-the-air-you-breathe-on-planes/
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Do you have any further information on that ?
I recall the bird flu pandemic which was going to wipe out a third of the World , that was just ,5/6 years ago?
Prior to that there was swine flu with similar hysterical Media comment.
So can you point me to a site to verify claim?
It would certainly be wonderful if it was impossible for the virus to become airborne, Because I can see some very heavy ramifications coming up in the next month or two if this gets out of hand. Closing borders being just the beginning.
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From the HealthMap disease daily with links to actual studies.
Nov 21, 2012 (Notice that date. CDC should have known of the possibility of airborne contamination) From Pigs to Monkeys, Ebola Goes Airborne
About page says:
So it is not the MSM or a blogger screaming FIRE! Ebola-Zaire is the present strain. BTW
To continue:
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Oh and Arch warmist Greg Laden chimes in with Ebola Will Not Become Airborne And Here is Why
First he is saying mutations don’t really occur at least not very often and second “Ebola does not infect the tissues it would need to infect to make its way into a sneeze or cough”
(That is enough to think what he is saying is nothing but Disinformation and it is.)
ERRRRrrr Greg you are WRONG!
The good doctor goes on to say:
From this information I would make a silly Wild @$$ guess that Zaire Ebola virus is as Jo said just barely airborne (droplets) and that medical personnel in very close quarters in closed rooms might have a chance of being infected by droplets. As Dr. Gary Kobinger said in a normal environment this would not be the manner of transmission.
Trying to disentangle contact with surface vs infected by droplets especially in humans would be a nightmare. However it should be considered in the care of patients.
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Try this as a small measure of sanity:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/ask-well-ebola-on-airplanes-ebola-in-sneezes/?_php=true&_type=blogs&WT.mc_id=AD-D-E-OTB-AD-RSS-OCTOBEROUTBRAIN-OS-1007-1031&WT.mc_ev=click&bicmst=1412654400&bicmet=1446264000&_r=0
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Your using the New York Times as your evidence?
The SAME New York Times that DENIED the great Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s, which Stalin engineered to crush millions of peasants who resisted his policies?
http://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Apologist-Walter-Duranty-Timess/dp/0195057007
Get real, I wouldn’t use the NYT for lining a bird cage.
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As a general rule, I always assume the MSM is exaggerating any health scare by at least 80 per cent. One day I’ll be wrong, but it hasn’t happened yet!
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Lawrence, at lot depends on the definition of “airborne”. I did say “There are different versions of airborne infections, hopefully this is in the “only just airborne” category. Just being barely airborne is not the same as, say, being spread like measles.
But I take your point. I’ve added an update to explain this better. Thanks for prodding me to be more specific.
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Just a quick comment about this…
regarding a disease vector and a target species, there are 2 things evolving so…
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True Gee Aye, but I would like faster action than waiting for humans to evolve resistance. The process is not much fun.
The Black Death Reshaped the Human Genome
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yeah was a bit pedantic of me given that inclusive fitness is revealed in 2 generations and the black death changes occurred following breeding among survivors (he writes without reading the link).
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Gee Aye SOP …
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At least we now know what’s behind the fig leaf.
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You may wish to consider the Y Pestis virus as an analogy. This infection has tree forms, pneumonic, septicemic, and bubonic plagues.
“Pneumonic plague can be caused in two ways: primary, which results from the inhalation of aerosolised plague bacteria, or secondary, when septicaemic plague spreads into lung tissue from the bloodstream.”(wiki)
As with the plague virus, it seems likely that the ebola virus in a persons lung tissue would be expelled as an aerosol.
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The medics, as always, have the choice of running away from the danger. They rarely do. All honour to them.
Pointman
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Jo may want to add this to the top.
Infectious Disease Index (Canada)
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Truly frightening.
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The USA top dog in the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) is turning out to be a real bumbling idiot. Ebola: Five ways the CDC got it wrong – CNN.com
Also see comments esp from nurses HERE.
Dr Savage studied epidemiology as well as botany and nutrition. He has been studying epidemics for a long time. ‘If you like your Ebola, you can keep your Ebola’
For example the apartment where Duncan lived was left for a week without clean up. Think rodents as vector and a low income area of a big city. Think over flowing dumpsters and garbage cans with contaminated material….
Obama has shown his concern about the problem:
Obama Plays 200th Round of Golf as 2nd Ebola Case Emerges
When the first case (Duncan) was diagnosed Obama was on the way to the Golf course and unloaded the car made the phone call to the CDC director pose for the photo ops and then loaded up and hit the golf course.
President Obama Plays Golf After Making Somber Statement On Beheaded American Journalist James Foley
Nothing like an Affirmative Action President when there is a crisis.
n the mean time the Democratic Spin Machine is Blaming the Republicans! (Actually the Republicans up the amount Obama had stipulated.)
I wonder how they will make this one all BOOOooosh’s fault?
Thank goodness for the internet.
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The fact that other country’s health workers have been infected as well it appears that the CDC are not the only ones who have no idea of how virulent ebola actually is.
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To add to my comment in moderation (too many links I think)
CDC Director says he would visit infected ebola patient with NO head covering and feet EXPOSED
The USA is truly run by an idiocracy.
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You kind of get the feeling that in the USA, Obama (an activist. aka “Community Organiser”), has placed in an endless supply of fellow activists to “govern” the country…Literally appoint such people in positions of power and critical govt institutions like the CDC. (Effectively fulfilling their undergraduate dreams of ruling the nation and trying to shape it to THEIR vision.)
As a result, you’ll see them all bumbling around like fools when the crapper hits the fan. ie: Activists have replaced competent and experienced people! Some of these folks are really off the wall Lefties who believe their mere presence alone will solve any problem. (They freeze up when reality hits them like a bucket of ice water). What believe they do is for the “greater good” that will lead them to “equality” and Global Utopia. => “I believe…blah blah blah.”
If I were American, I would have little faith in the current Govt protecting its citizens. Politics and public image is the name of the game with these kinds of people (Activists). The Nation’s people is a very, very distant 2nd. Just like what we had with Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era. They are also part of the same generation of humanity! That is, the radically-Left-indoctrinated tail-end of the Baby Boomer generation. (Anti-Western at heart. But all too happy to bask in the privileges and benefits Western society provides for the ruling, political class.)
Looks like those Doomsday Preppers (see National Geographic) ain’t so crazy after all! Becoming self-sufficient.
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Yes I was just discussing laying in supplies with my husband.
Luckily our area can easily be made isolated.
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gai, we’ve already done that. Somehow I have the feeling that zombie movies are really for training though.
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UPDATE: The second Texas Healthworker to come down with Ebola was on flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas the day before – the CDC wants passengers to call as a precaution.
http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/26789321/cdc-healthcare-worker-with-ebola-flew-before-her-diagnosis
The first worker is getting blood from survivors and is stable:
I would say that if Ebola wanted to get the attention of the USA it has achieved it. Toledo is now preparing, just in case…
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Probably the same experts that advised the nursing staff on how to use their safety gear right?
The question I have for any of these “experts” is: At EXACTLY what moment in the timeline (from no symptoms to showing symptoms) does sweat, tears, nasal material, saliva, etc. contain the infectious material? I bet $100 they do not know.
No I’m not panicking -yet- but these experts need to get real serious about containment NOW.
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I noticed in the video of the decontamination of one of the victim’s apartment that the containment barrels were not marked with a bio-hazard symbol. I would assume that they are on their way to an appropriate incinerator. ASS U ME!
I wonder what the chances of them finding their way into an opportunity for infection might be? Naaaah. Couldn’t happen, CDC is looking out for us.
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“the virus doesn’t spread until people show symptoms”
This is not known for certain either.
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A bit of humor
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1369/8839/original.jpg?w=600&h
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I wondered about the possible risks of other animals carrying Ebola further increasing the risk of transferring the disease, there is always a concern with animal food sources becoming infectious such as ‘Mad cow disease’ the WHO lists it as a threat does anyone have a better insight into this concern?
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It seems to be carried by the rodent family. The rodent family includes mice, rats, bats, guinea pigs, porcupines, beavers, squirrels, marmots, pocket gophers, and chinchillas. The only rodents we normally eat are rabbits.
It is thought that ‘bush meat’ is the reservoir in Africa and fruit bats a known carrier are considered a delicacy.
Rodents can not upchuck so feces/blood/dead bodies would be the only possible route of infection from the animals and they would only be contagious from direct contact for a few days. There is the problem that once in this country rodents could become a reservoir. Luckily we do not have fruit bats, unfortunately Mexico does.
So it is person to person contact that is the real carrier at least for the USA.
SEE: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/could_the_black_death_actually
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Thanks gai, I guess the real concern is Ebola infecting Western food staples from the Ovine, Bovine, Porcine families, vegans might have the last laugh yet but they still have to breathe.
I recall Rodents not capable of upchucking but I think they can cough or sneeze, can’t think if a Beaver has ever sneezed on me….anyway thanks for the links 🙂
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Obama refuses to close the borders, he refuses to ban air traffic from infected countries or impose decent quarantine measures.
Could this be the reason?
“I don’t believe in reparations because it’s not enough.” -Senator Obama, 2007
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Now that it’s killing white people, see how fast the vaccine gets developed!
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The good news is that there were apparently quite a few potential Ebola vaccines on the sidelines. The money to test and get them approved was not there. But they are being fast-tracked – Glaxo promises to have 10,000 units by the end of the year. Medical ability to manipulate DNA has made vaccines potentially a lot easier to develop. That said, things can go wrong. The vaccines may not get the response we want, or it may not last, or the side effects might be serious. I spoke to an Australian today who is working on one, and he feels quite confident theirs will be useful. I am encouraged.
Slowing transmission now is especially important — not just to save lives but to remove opportunities for the virus to change. WE can do a lot at this end of the curve, but we must double our efforts faster than the virus doubles its…
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That is why sane quarantine measures for air travel makes a lot of sense. Asking questions and taking temps is nothing but a ‘for show’ exercise especially when the Dallas fiasco shows just how poorly prepared hospitals are for handling Ebola.
We as Americans are expected to put up with the TSA Grope-n-Fly but we can’t inconvenience foreigners with requiring quarantine if they have been to West Africa? Shows where our government’s priorities are.
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Good Grief, it just gets worse and worse…
A statement from National Nurses United on the treatment of Dallas Ebola patient
It sounds like they really need to quarantine the entire city at this point. The number of potential contacts is much greater than the ‘official CDC number’
Also one person mentioned a fever may occur AFTER the person is already contagious.
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More on the idiot who runs the US CDC
The Supreme Court established Isolation & Quarantine Authority of the Fed under the commerce clause.
See: Legal Authorities for Isolation and Quarantine
00
What is truly frightening is the apparent total disinterest of African Governments at all levels and in all countries, and the African Union, to the very basic problem of Ebola.
Had African Politicians got out on the ground apparently with clean water and chlorine plus containment plus the basic disease control measures known and practiced in Western countries for the last 120 years ???????????????
But Hell.
What’s more important, posturing on the international stage at the UN asking others (the rich West) to implement basic hygiene in your
country while operating from a comfortable New York hotel OR actually teaching your citizens basic disease control measures like washing
hands (when clean water is available).
There is a possibility that African people have been failed by their own Governing class.
Two weeks ago I listened to an interview with an African health official going into a long complicated University level discussion of Ebola. Totally divorced from the very basic health measures which would have at least CONTAINED this mess.
People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KK
80
At this point I am beginning to think people like Murray N. Rothbard and Mark Stoval have a point.
10
Hi Gai,
Have tried to get an overview of the ideas of Rothbard and Stoval in 5 minutes.
Seems interesting and something the Africans could use: Home Rule, Home Responsibility, Home Effort.
The interview I mentioned above was exasperating in that the “health official” was theorizing about the possible implications of an Ebola spread to gee up help from “richer” (why do I feel I am being enslaved by politicians?) countries ie The West.
KK
40
The priorities & bent agenda are obvious, but it needs to be documented here.
October 14, 2014. Biden In Florida: ‘No State In America Is In More Jeopardy On Climate Change Than Yours’
“No state in America is in more jeopardy on climate change than yours but you have a governor that says he’s not convinced. What do you need to be convinced? Miami underwater?” Biden asked.
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2014/10/14/biden-in-florida-no-state-in-america-is-in-more-jeopardy-on-climate-change-than-yours/
. . .
Peak stupid terminates here.
You have arrived.
30
What is incredible is the democrats are already spinning this problem to lay the blame on the Republicans.
How incredibly callous can you get?
DON’T do your job (CDC), DON’T close the borders, play golf and when things blow up blame BOOOooosh.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/10/15/the-absurd-claim-that-only-republicans-are-to-blame-for-cuts-to-ebola-research/
Note how the blame is ‘everybody’s fault’ and not laid squarely where it belongs.
The actual truth on the phantom Republican budget cuts.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/101314-721520-cdc-failures-on-ebola-are-not-from-phantom-budget-cuts.htm
Sure looks like Obama’s Admin did the cutting.
30
CDC = Rome, Violins, Nero
20
January 2014
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation dosed the first subject in a Phase 1 human clinical trial of TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola viral therapeutic that is being developed under a US$140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
This work was being conducted under contract with the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) BioDefense Therapeutics (BD Tx), a Joint Product Manager within the Medical Countermeasure Systems (JPM-MCS) Joint Project Management Office.
Ocrober 2014
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR) stocks surged over 18% on Wednesday Oct 1st (the day after the first reported case in Dallas), leaving it up a whopping 180% since mid-July. Investors are betting the Vancouver-based company has a leg up on competitors because last month the FDA gave it a green light to provide its experimental TKM-Ebola drug to test subjects with “confirmed or suspected Ebola virus infections.”
00
And if the ‘doubling each week’ rate is correct then the earth’s population has about 22 weeks.
Imagine that. 22 weeks and everyone is dead.
10
Only about 70%
That falls a bit short of Ted Turner’s dream:
“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Ted Turner is founder of CNN, a major US News channel and founder of United Nations Foundation.
Tim Wirth is now president of Turner’s United Nations Foundation. As a US Senator, Tim Wirth organized the critical 1988 Senate hearing at which James Hansen lectured Congress on global warming after setting up the room so the air conditioning wouldn’t work on the hottest day of the summer. Wirth also led the U.S. negotiating team at the Kyoto Summit.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/wirth.html
Isn’t it nice to know we have complete nutters running our country and our news media?
30
warcroft, doubling time is estimated at 3 to 4 weeks. Every measure we take that slows that rate makes a big difference. I would imagine even sending hundreds of thousands of rubber gloves, inadequate N95 masks, plastic disposal bags, soap and Chlorine would still help. But all the rare and precious health-workers should be provided with proper respirators asap.
Is anyone trying to arrange useful blood donations from survivors? If we could provide antibodies to new patients and one sole carer it could dramatically change the situation.
50
Most of the health workers are locals, not international aid health workers and they certainly need a constant supply of basics.
21
Self monitoring with such a deadly contagion makes no sense. Australian Red Cross needs to immediately change their procedures and quarantine returning medical staff in Africa for the 21 day period as a minimum. Immigration needs to isolate people INTENDING to travel to Australia from West Africa until they can medically prove they have no contact with the virus…21 days in another country free of the virus.(If the Africans are doing their job…good luck getting into that free country)
Until a proven vaccine becomes available containment is the only prevention of spread.
I never thought that a plot from a novel would prove factual. Mobility provided by fast international travel is our public enemy number one.
90
I put a theory on sweat vapour could possibly be a source of infection at the Jack the Insider blog on the weekend. Was shot down and I replied “that the science was settled” and commented, “where have I heard that before?”
Us humans have become a bunch of smug know it alls when in fact our scientific knowledge is still in its infancy. We can’t even cure cancers yet.
The people in a hundred years will look back on us as archaic.
100
Aerosolized transmission ( main route for flu) is a complicated subject. Virons per droplet, dwell time in air… Flu exhalation (not even a cough, just breathing out) is infectious prior to any symptoms. And exhaled aqueous areosols remainninnthe air longer when smaller. Lower humidity winter air causes aerosols to evsporate and remain airborn longer; more humid summers cause them to settle out more rapidly. That is why flu peaks in winter.
Aeorsolized transmission is also a mater of subsequent contact, not necessarily inhalation. Norovirus is fecal-oral. Younhavento swallow it to get ‘cruise ship disease’. But since it causes projectile vomiting (the technical term is apt literally), the ‘splash radius ‘ of what may be invisibly small droplets can be several feet, or two dining tables away. And all the food, plates, utensils that far away can be contaminated. And, that virus can remain viable for up to 28 days even after the droplets have dried. Is a quite different form of ‘airborne’ transmission.
It would be surprising of a little bit of both were not somehow involved in Ebola. But given the Ro, it also seems a prettynhigh viral load is necessary for infection.
90
Rud, thanks, I think we need better language to describe modes of transmission more accurately.
Calling Ebola “Direct contact” undersells the risk, but “Airborne” oversells it.
Ian Mackay was hunting for a better term on his blog.
He thinks “Propelled”. I think maybe “Droplet Spray”. But since there is a continuum, perhaps we need a suite of words, and properly defined. Do you know of a list? It would be useful if there was a numerical range of distances at which it could be caught. I’m guessing though, that it would be hard to come up with meaningful numbers given that the distance depends on the weather…
50
Excellent idea.
That was what Material Safety Data Sheets were supposed to do for chemists and factory workers. Unfortunately CYA kicked in so you end up with the MSDS saying you need full hazmat gear to drink a beer.
(I used the ethanol MSDS as my training tool when training factory workers so I didn’t scare them into quiting on the spot.)
00
Authorities are looking for the 130 passengers on the plane she flew on. What about the 1000’s of people at the two airports, buses or taxis she may have used
70
Goodness everyone here loves to make assertions. 45 comments about diseases, field practice, government programs etc etc without one piece of evidence. So just to put your minds at ease I think we should ask Doug Cotton to provide the answers.
14
Not just assertions Gee Aye, there’s also information, ideas, questions, conversing….oh sorry I forgot about your post modern science indoctrination and lack of ability for adult interactions.
Here start with this and we can take it form there, remember there are no silly questions so don’t be shy.
30
Yonnie I note that your posts have the humility to pose as questions rather than asserted facts or my favorite, the incredulous statement (surely these people are trained to take their gloves off properly – should be basic training like in my day guffaw).
Still waiting on how DC finds a way to comment.
02
Thanks for recognizing the humility it’s a big step forward for you, are you alluding that I made the statement in brackets? if so I think you have me mixed up with another middle age white male conservative bastardized by his cliché home town upbringing.
Regarding humility don’t you have another innocent child’s name to publicly use for an underhanded attack on the adults involved in your perceived crime?
40
I said “rather than”
01
Fair enough my mistaken context, I thought it rude to make a sweeping statement on all ’45 comments’ dismissing everything as conjecture with no evidence, politics aside if anyone gave legitimate information I wouldn’t discredit it simply because of that persons political leanings, I don’t think your a fool Gee Aye and would listen to any insights on the subject you would like to share.
As for the rest, acknowledgement is one thing respect is another.
00
Seems Gee doesn’t consider the Canadian Safety Data Sheet evidence. She/he doesn’t consider the Nurses union might have something useful to say on the subject.
And she/he is not interested in the fact my government is mishandling the situation and is putting many many people at risk.
Dr. Aileen Marty is a contagious-diseases specialist, teaches at Miami’s Florida International, works with the World Health Organization and in Nigeria, helped develop a system in airports and at borders to keep anyone infected with the Ebola virus from entering or leaving the country.
Pewrhaps you would like to read what she has to say. Or isn’t someone who just spent 31 days in Nigeria containing an out break good enough?
I sure wish she was in charge of the CDC at this time!
50
The proper term is “he/she/IT”.
11
Thanks, I will have to remember that.
00
See how a post becomes more interesting with context and information, your comment was interesting. It moved from being assertion to argument. I asserted when I mentioned the 45 posts – it is the liberty I was able to take that I would not have had responding to argument.
02
I was listening to an interview with the second infected. She wasnt even in the danger zone (so to speak). She was at the back, screening returning care workers, herself wearing full protective gear at all times.
Her and one other guy were working together. Both in full gear screening other people. The other guy started getting symptoms and was immediately removed.
She said the two of them never touched each other. Ever.
They were decontaminating everyday.
The only thing she can put it down to is she ‘might’ have touched something which he had touched. But again, they were both in full protective gear and they BOTH still caught it.
70
Not only that but this second nurse, Amber Vinson, called the CDC and reported she had a temperature of 99.5 F (normal is 98.6F) and the CDC gave her permission to board the flight.
http://twitchy.com/2014/10/15/wait-what-cdc-cleared-second-ebola-infected-nurse-to-fly-despite-fever/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/10/15/white-house-nope-an-ebola-travel-ban-still-isnt-on-the-table/
40
There was a third person, a guy with symptoms as well as the two female nurses?
Hadn’t seen that before.
10
This just in.
United Nations warns the world has 60 days to get the disease under control
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/ebola-crisis-united-nations-warns-the-world-has-60-days-to-get-the-disease-under-control/story-fneuzlbd-1227092089027
10
we don’t trust the UN do we, so this must be wrong.
05
GEE,
I suggest you read “Crimson Sky” It is simulated outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Given the incompetent handling of the situation, the mobility of the American public and the nastiness of the disease, I think it would be quite foolish not to monitor the situation and to place a boot in the rear of our reps in Washington.
50
The fact Ebola has any airborne capability is terrifying.
In any optimisation experiment, such as training a neural net (or a young child for that matter), the hardest step is the first step – their first word, the first hint of an ability. After that crucial first hint of ability, progress resembles a hockey stick – in the words of the terminator movie “it learns at a geometric rate”.
Since Ebola has already made that crucial first step, progress to improved capability will be terrifyingly fast, unless we find a way to stamp out the disease before it gets a chance to progress.
70
Looks like the only known of curing is serum made from the blood of Ebola survivors. I am hearing that the heralded experimental serum was a failure. Cheers –
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/14/the-decades-old-treatment-that-may-save-a-young-dallas-nurse-infected-with-ebola/
20
Pretty risky option – most of the survivors are in a country which has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, including mutations which might not show up in standard tests.
00
I’m a bit confused. “Potentially airborne” means “it is possible that it will become airborne in the future”, but the story suggests that it already is airborne.
Serious problem, either way.
10
RoHa
Read my comment up thread from the Canadian Safety Data sheet on Ebola. It specifically states air borne.
link
20
So not potentially but actually airborne!
10
Reading the heading only
I initially thought it referred to plane travel – was wrong there
But reading some papers on Colds, TB, Flu etc that passengers have higher risk of infection on aircraft?
I wonder if this has been considered as an additional RISK in regard to Ebola
To illustrate, tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium M.tuberculosis and an active carrier of this pathogen would be expected to infect roughly ten people a year(Shnayerson & Plotkin, 2002). However, on a flight from Paris to New York in the Fall of 1998, a Ukrainian passenger with active, drug-resistant TB infected 13 other passengers who sat in his vicinity (Shnayerson & Plotkin, 2002)
From “Common Cold Transmission in Aircraft”
Can there be heightened risk associated with Recycled Ducted Air-conditioning systems with high humidity.
Seems that all of the recent cases involve Aircraft & A/C’d Hospitals?
60
A man arriving from Ivory Coast infected with the Ebola virus has been hospitalized in Istanbul on Wednesday.
But I can’t find confirmation yet in the Turkish online media.
The implications are pretty serious, however. If the man was living in Ivory Coast, he must have acquired Ebola there—in a country that has so far escaped it, and which is economically far more significant than the hot-zone countries.
If it’s a real case, the Turkish authorities and media will let us know very soon. If it’s not, it just shows, you can catch Ebola jitters even next door to ISIS and wars in Syria and Iraq.
http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2014/10/16/man-with-ebola-virus-hospitalized-in-istanbul
20
A useful source for all those nasty bugs and viruses is –
http://www.infectionlandscapes.org/p/the-diseases.html
30
Oops,
that’s a source of information not infection.
20
Another information source is http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/
20
Here is another breaking news story:
more detail:
Not something I wanted to read. Given the hospital in Dallas had ZERO training, CDC should have sent a specialist, someone from one of these hospitals with specialized training to take complete control of the situation.
That is what CDC is supposed to be doing and what CDC has the legal right to do. I am sure the Admin at the hospital would have been glad of the help under the circumstances. Hopefully the CDC has sent specially trained staff at this point.
OH, and the ‘hot line’ for the other passengers on that plane? It takes four hours (236 mins.) on hold to get through….
40
I’m almost loath to even mention this, but Colonialism has a part in all this, not necessarily bad, and while this is an anecdote based around actual fact, it holds true.
In late 1960, and I was only 9 years old, not long after we moved to Queensland from
MexicoVictoria, my interest was taken by a news story that was big at the time, the mysterious death of the second UN SecGen Dag Hammarskjöld. (and there have only been 8 SecGens since 1946) Now, even though I was only 9, the interest for me was that there were so many cool sounding names surrounding this story, probably the first time I began to move out the somewhat insular life as a child, and noticing the World around me.Dag Hammarskjöld was one of them, and the situation he was trying to sort out was the uprising in The Belgian Congo. There was Patrice Lumumba, Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Moise Tshombe.
The story wore off (pretty quickly for a nine year old anyway) but years later in 1967, when I joined the RAAF, another story from that same area also took my interest, remembering that original interest I had. I read an article, and it was probably even in a National Geographic mag waiting for a medical appointment at the Medical Section.
The article was ostensibly about what had happened in the former Belgian Congo, since their Revolution, and when they kicked out the Belgians. Not long before the Belgian Colonial entity was kicked out, they had opened a huge new state of the art hospital, and now, years later this hospital had reverted back to the jungle, literally, as the many photographic images showed. They had no one to run it, since kicking out all the Belgians. The whole Country had virtually reverted back to jungle. Everything that had been set up was now left inoperable, as no one had any idea what to do.
The hospital, the power generation, the roads, the whole deal.
I know that this is only anecdotal, so there’s no backing up what I say here as it is so far in the past now.
However, I was drawn back to that original situation in The Congo with this Ebola crisis, and how I mentioned that these 3 Countries in question have no electrical power infrastructure, as I mentioned in this comment on the weekend just gone.
Colonialism is not necessarily a good thing, but in this case it had led to many good things in The Congo, all of them gone when the African dictators took over. There were no people to to run all these things.
And I’m of an opinion that infrastructure of this nature may have actually led to this current outbreak being less of a problem than it currently is.
Again, I stress that this may only be anecdotal in nature, but perhaps the article at this link from 2000 might tend to back up what I’m saying here.
Tony.
80
About 20 years ago I attended a talk and slide show (slides ?; ha!) by a young lady that had spent a couple of months in Mali (with a church group). The same sort of loss (power and irrigation, as I recall) happened when the French went home.
40
Tony your ideas are similar to an excellent 1997 book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ where the author presents a theory on why civilizations developed at very different rates over the centuries, this was a brave undertaking considering the potential accusations of racism or elitist ideals, the documentary is very good also.
We can also compare a first world ‘Ghost Town’ caused by the removal of it’s major source of employment and economic growth.
40
Tony – same thing going on in PNG once the Australians left. But not politically correct to day so.
30
O/Topic but too good to pass – Lockheed Martin reckons they have a design for small-scale fusion:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/lockheed-martin-unveils-miniature-nuclear-fusion-power-generator/story-e6frg8y6-1227092587574
Yes fusion! Seriously WTF if it works out.
30
It is a design, not a prototype.
I would believe this as much as a Climate Model …
If you cannot build something that works in the real world, it is speculation.
71
When are governments going to accept that in cases like ebola, which kills in a relatively short time frame, you have to be cruel to the infected in order to be kind to the majority for their own survival.
Firstly, you have to stop all travel to stop the potential spread of the disease.
Secondly, you have to isolate these people infected with ebola.
50
“…stop all travel…”
Can I go buy some groceries first?
30
Actually no. Someone will get it for you and put it outside your door.
20
Nuke the joint! …. Jesting. Been watching “Aliens”.
00
Airborne/
Not a problem mate.
http://wtfrly.com/2014/10/15/clipboard-man-with-no-protection-too-close-to-dallas-ebola-nurse-before-airlift-video/#.VD9DGNTLc0g
31
It strikes me as odd that Obama will invoke the precautionary principle with respect to carbon dioxide emissions but not Ebola, and of course as we all know it just highlights how far this GW BS has festered.
30
looking at some figures, all of which i find suspect:
14 Oct: The Hill: Elise Viebeck: Ebola death rate rises to 70 percent, says world health body
Global health officials said Tuesday that the death rate in the Ebola epidemic has risen to 70 percent, up from 50 percent.
The World Health Organization (WHO) made the announcement at a news conference in Geneva, where officials said there could be up to 10,000 new cases of the virus every week within two months.
A total of 4,447 people have died from Ebola this year, the WHO said, while 8,914 have been sickened.
***Experts believe the real number of Ebola victims is much bigger than the official figures due to difficulties in reporting the cases….
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/220644-ebola-death-rate-rises-to-70-percent
4,447 of 8,914 is approx 50%, so how does WHO say the death rate is 70%?
one month ago, deaths were reported as 2,400, which means officially there have been only approx. 2,000 deaths in the month since, or less than 500 per week. talk of potential 10,000 new cases per week within 2 months, which would mean 7,000 deaths per week at 70% death rate is, therefore a big call, unless the death rate is currently much bigger than is being reported.
15 Sept: Democracy Now: Underestimated and Ignored, Growing Ebola Epidemic Requires Unprecedented Global Mobilization
So far, Ebola has claimed some 2,400 lives and continues to ravage Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea…
For more, we’re joined by Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, (who) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her coverage of an Ebola outbreak in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, author of the two best-selling books, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance and Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health…
***LAURIE GARRETT: We know that the majority of people are now keeping family members in their homes, not bringing them forward. And so, all the numbers you hear are a gross undercount, and they represent only laboratory-confirmed cases. So, most of the people on the ground are saying that it’s understated threefold, which would say that we have something in the neighborhood of 12,000 to 15,000 cumulative cases already.
LAURIE GARRETT: Ebola, in contrast, infects blood. And people don’t spit out blood unless they’re really acutely ill with something, and so transmission right now is contact. If you touch the bleeding or the sweat, sweating fluids, of an individual who’s infected, and then rub your nose, rub your eyes, eat some food with those unwashed hands, that’s the nature of transmission. Could the virus mutate into one that could end up more airborne-transmissible? Well, potentially, but it would have to then take on a respiratory cycle similar to what we see with flu. And that would be huge, because the main target cells for this virus are what’s called the endothelial cells, which are the cells that line blood vessels, capillaries, arteries and so on. And the way it kills you is it pokes little holes in those blood linings and allows blood to leak and hemorrhage into the rest of your body…
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/15/underestimated_and_ignored_growing_ebola_epidemic
all i know from what i’ve read and watched online is there are not enough facilities in the hot zones to treat people, so large numbers of victims are not lab-confirmed. very sad situation.
20
What you have to remember about the numer of cases versus the number of deaths, it only takes minutes to verify someone has it, but it can take a week or more before they actually die and are declared dead and that is providing someone knows that they have died.
00
immediately after posting my previous comment, i notice BBC is finally ready to acknowledge the glaring anomalies in the figures being reported by MSM daily:
15 Oct: BBC: James Gallagher: Ebola outbreak: How many people have died?
The most recent official figure from the World Health Organization puts the number of deaths at 4,447.
But 12,000 could be a better estimate. Getting to this figure highlights a number of issues with the Ebola data…
We know people are contracting the disease, and dying from it, without being noticed…
Based on small trials, agencies including the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control are taking an “educated guess” that the figure is around twice that.
The widely reported estimate of 10,000 cases per week by December uses this doubling to account for under-reporting.
“We get that because 5,000 is the midpoint of our modelling scenarios and if we allow for under-reporting [by a factor of two] then that’s 10,000,” said Dr Christopher Dye, the director of strategy in the office of the director general at the WHO.
Use the same principle and the number of cases now could be around 18,000…
What you need is quality data and the best comes from a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A team, including scientists at Imperial College London, looked at a sub-set of patients with full medical records from diagnosis through to either recovery or death.
Dr Dye told the BBC: “On the basis of this analysis, our best estimate is a 60-70% case fatality and it’s sensible to use a range as there are variations from one place to another.”
Use the 70% figure on the 18,000 estimated cases and it seems around 12,000 are either dead or dying…
Clearly that is not a definitive figure, but getting there shows how messy some of the data are.
And this is the same basic data being used to reach forecasts of 1.4 million cases by January or 10,000 new cases a week by December
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29628481
10
One of the greatest stupidities was the notion that the secondary vectoring of Ebola was by body fluids and naively thinking that aerosol vectoring didn’t count when in fact an Ebola aerosol is an atomised body fluid.
70
Sorry, but I can not get as hysterical as some about this current Ebola outbreak. We are now told there will be 10000 new cases per week by December but just last week they were telling us that there would be 1.4 million people infected by the end of the year. At a rate of 10000 per week it will take a long time to reach the 1.4 million mark. I know that mathematics is not a strong point for the UN and it’s various bodies but surely in a case as serious as this someone must be checking the numbers before they are released.
In relation as to why this outbreak has spread so far, it should be noted that these countries in west Africa have seen a massive expansion in mining and gold exploration in the last 10 years. There are now roads into the areas where Ebola outbreaks have originated in the past. In previous times isolation of the villages in these areas acted as a buffer to the spread but now people from these areas can be in a major population centre in half a days travel time. It might not be that it has become more contagious but that we have provided easy transport for much wider spread.
There also seems to be some odd things going on with who does and who doesn’t get infected. The poor bloke who died in Texas had spent a number of days with his girlfriend and family, while sick, yet they do not seemed to have contracted the virus. Then 2 nurses, kitted out in all the protective gear, somehow manage to get it. It does seem that the chances of catching it from an infected person increases as the disease runs its course but I strongly suspect that in the case of doctors and health care workers it is about not following set protocols. I have worked in laboratories for many years and I can tell you it is a constant struggle to get people to stick to set procedures. The more qualified a person is the more likely they are to think they know better and to take short cuts.
The good news is that infection rates are falling in the areas first effected and that 2 countries look to have stabilised their situation. I would suggest that with the additional aid being sent in, and the way Ebola outbreaks have gone in the past, we will be seeing far fewer than 10000 new cases per week by the end of the year.
20
Don
It is not the disease that is scary it is the complete incompetence of the bureaucrats!
Ebola is classed level 4. The USA has only four hospitals equipped and trained to deal with it. Emory has 2 beds I don’t know about the others.
So this is what the CDC director, Frieden says after the Duncan case hit the news:
With advise like that from the head of CDC is it any wonder the nurses came down with Ebola?
On top of that the Nurses Union had to ream the CDC in print and had to threaten to picket to get Obama off the golf course and make the CDC do what they are supposed to.
National Nurses United said We Were Told to Call Authorities for Ebola Protocol
To top the whole SNAFU off the nurses treating Duncan also treated other patients and then one was allowed to travel out of state. When she called the CDC (repeatedly) about having a fever (99.5F) they said it was fine to get on a commercial aircraft.
Nigeria did a better job of handling their one case than the USA has!
50
Thanks gai
I understand your point about bureaucratic incompetence but I didn’t know it extended to the CDC, big, big problem given the nasty bugs they have in their storage facilities. The media reports I’ve seen have been making out that the nurse broke protocol to fly home to selfishly plan her wedding. They didn’t say that she had asked for permission to before taking the flight!
My question about Duncan still stands. Why did his girlfriend and close relatives not get infected? He had been turned away by a hospital so we know he was sick. Clearly Ebola is only highly infectious in the later stages when bodily fluids are pouring out of the unfortunate victim. If this is the case then it is a relatively easy disease to control the spread of.
I noticed the WHO today say that the number of cases are doubling every 4 weeks. Ok, lets examine this. There are currently about 10000 cases, in 4 weeks there will be 20000, 4 weeks after that there will be 40000. That is mid December. But hang on, didn’t they tell us just 2 days ago that there will be 10000 new cases per week by December? And what about 1.4 million cases by the end of the year they told us last week? The number do not add up!
They also made the odd statement that the world has only 60 days to deal with this problem. No mention of what happens after 60 days, does the planet explode? Do we get hit by an asteroid? Does the global warming final kill us all? I suspect that in 60 days Ebola will be on the decline and that the UN/WHO only have 60 days left to scare the US and western allies into pouring lots of money into their coffers. The Chinese seem to have all the money these days, does anyone know what their contribution has been?
20
You are correct with sane quarantine procedures in place and decent medical protocols it should be containable. Nigeria proved that and Dr. Aileen Marty who “..helped develop a system in airports and at borders to keep anyone infected with the Ebola virus from entering or leaving the country…” is sitting available right here at Miami’s Florida International University.
My big problem is the bureaucratic incompetence coupled with 4,000 soldiers from the USA on the ground in the infected areas.
We know the following:
1. Ebola can spread via dropplets from pigs to monkey and this is a possible explanation for the spread to medical personnel who were in close proximity to victims of the disease while it was in it’s worse stage.
2. The Ebola virus is still present in sperm 90 days after recovery from the disease.
3. It takes up to 21 days after exposure for symptoms to develop.
(This plus the possibility of some natural immunity built up in present day Africans may give a possible explanation to your question as to why “…Why did his [Duncan’s] girlfriend and close relatives not get infected?…” – The 21 days are not yet up.)
Given the above it is the present Admin.s demonstrated incompetence I worry about.
Think about it All men who have recovered MUST reframe from sexual intercourse for three months after recovery. In young men you guarantee that with QUARANTINE. Also all returning troops MUST be Quarantined for a month.
I just do not see this Admin having the balls to institute that type of strict quarantine after the demonstrations of idiocy so far.
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Don S
This shows that that CDC was recommending LEVEL 1 for Ebola and NOT the Level 4 that is used in Africa or the Bio-containment units here in the 4 specialized hospitals or even level 2 (full cover plus booties). Changes to Ebola Protection Worn by U.S. Hospital Workers
No wonder the Nurses Union went ballistic!!!
I hope the nurses involved sue the crap out of Dr. FriedBrains!
Notice the personal gear, shoes and trousers are not covered with level 1. Heck the face isn’t even fully covered! This means fluids (feces and vomit) can be tracked all over the hospital as the nurses went about attending other patients and could even be tracked home. It also means possible droplets could end up on the face.
Good grief as a chemist I keep separate clothes, especially shoes that I changed before entering the house and as a farmer I have separate shoes for off site. I also use quarantine as a matter of routine and it has kept me from infecting my herds with nasty diseases that showed up in new animals I bought.
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Breaking news, no need to panic people Homeopaths without Borders have discovered 87 cures for Ebola virus, crisis averted. 🙂
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Dont panic! Fox News said so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2KBfynW09I
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As I am about to turn 60years soon I was considering selling my XJR Yamaha 1300 MOtorcycle for a AK 47; in order to get my priorities in order!!
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Don’t do it Glen, a well sorted XJR 1300 is a pretty good weapon. 🙂
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At the risk of being shot down for non -alarmism , there is this,
http://www.virology.ws/2014/09/18/what-we-are-not-afraid-to-say-about-ebola-virus/
After reading a lot of the stuff here I was becoming quite concerned ,after reading the above I am less concerned , but still very sorry for the victims. If the virus ever does mutate to become airborne, then it will be less aggressive and deadly as Jo has previously mentioned.
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I don’t see why.
Why isn’t it a perfectly sufficient response simply to stop anyone coming in to Australia from an infected country, unless they are quarantined for a more than sufficient time?
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I have heard that the President of the USA is now being called President Ebola.
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You have it wrong.
He is now called President Obola.
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The USA has another breach of protocol.
‘Who is clipboard man?’: man without Hazmat suit helps Ebola patient onto plane
Man with no protective clothing, carrying only a clipboad, photographed helping second US Ebola patient board her plane
Also Obama finally leaves his golf and campaigning to issue statement:
Isn’t it a wee bit late to finally be taking this seriously? Please note that the Fed Admin can send out a medical “SWAT team” but didn’t bother to do so despite the questions asked of the CDC on how to handle the first Dallas Ebola case.
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a little about transfusions from survivors:
15 Oct: ABC America: Why Dr. Kent Brantly Couldn’t Donate Blood to Thomas Eric Duncan
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola and who later died, didn’t receive a blood transfusion from a physician who survived the virus because their blood types didn’t match.
Dr. Kent Brantly told ABC News today that his blood type is A+, while Duncan’s family has said his blood type was B+, making them incompatible for a transfusion of whole blood or plasma. Blood transfusions from someone who successfully battled the virus are believed to possibly be beneficial to Ebola patients.
Had Duncan received a blood transfusion from Brantly, it would have caused hemolysis – the breakdown of red blood cells – according to Dr. Christopher Stowell, director of Transfusion Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital…
He said he has since given blood plasma to Ashoka Mukpo, Dr. Richard Sacra and Nina Pham.
Brantly said he hasn’t been asked to donate blood plasma to Amber Vinson, the second health worker who tested positive for the virus after treating Duncan…
According to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Duncan was being treated, Duncan did not receive any kind of blood transfusion because his blood type was not compatible with any of the donors.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dr-kent-brantly-donate-blood-thomas-eric-duncan/story?id=26226388
***the following brings up the earlier Congo outbreak. there is a documentary online (forget its name) which shows the foreign medical staff being horrified when the Congolese medical staff insist on giving a transfusion from a survivor to a nurse. they go ahead anyway & she survives, and they then give transfusions to the others, almost all of whom survived. i don’t know whether anyone in the current West African hot zones is keeping a database of survivors’ blood types, so that they can match them for transfusions with victims, but i hope this is being done, because it appears to be a worthwhile treatment:
August: Newsweek: The 20-Year-Old Ebola Treatment That Could Save Kent Brantly
In Monrovia, Liberia, 33-year old Dr. Kent Brantly of Forth Worth, Texas had been treating Ebola patients since June, as part of an international relief group called Samaritan’s Purse. But in mid-July, Brantly recognized that he himself was showing symptoms of Ebola…
On Thursday Brantly was given a shot at survival: a 14-year-old male Ebola patient who had been under Brantly’s care, and survived, donated a “unit of blood” to Brantly, according to Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham. “The young boy and his family wanted to be able to help the doctor that saved his life.”…
(CONGO)Then, in the last days, a nurse at Kikwit General Hospital, who had volunteered to care for a pair of Ebola-infected Italian nuns, developed symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever…
“The rest of the team became concerned,” says Colebunders, and some of the medical professionals there who had suffered through and survived an earlier infection (“convalescent patients” in the literature) wanted to donate some of their blood to the nurse.
***“The Americans and Scientists from the States didnt believe it could work,” says Colebunders, but the Congolese doctors did it anyway. The same blood transfusion procedure was repeated for seven others who were ill, the final group of Ebola-stricken patients in the hospital.
The results were staggering: seven of the eight survived…
There’s precedent for this treatment approach, too. “We use this in other infectious diseases, and we can—and should—use that experience and apply it to Ebola,” says Heinrich Feldmann, the head of the National Institute of Health’s Laboratory of Virology. In Argentina, for example, infection of the Junin virus is often (and effectively) treated with blood transfusions from a Junin survivor.
So, why hasn’t the CDC, the WHO and the rest of the public health organizations worldwide jumped all over immune plasma infusion for Ebola? Why are we still scrambling for an Ebola treatment 20 years later?
The answer is that it has been essentially impossible to test. Why? Because Ebola only pops up occasionally, infects a relative few, and kills most. There’s no way, says Feldmann, to get enough plasma during an outbreak to treat others involved in that same outbreak. “Of course if you are collecting plasma now for the next outbreak, then you will have the time to do it,” Feldmann adds, though he is unaware of anyone collecting plasma during the current West African outbreak.
At least, until the unnamed 14-year-old boy, who, of his own accord, is about to become a key piece of the second test case in 20 years for what could be the treatment we’ve all been waiting for…
http://www.newsweek.com/20-year-old-ebola-treatment-could-save-kent-brantly-262552
not sure i go along with Feldman’s excuse for why blood can’t be/isn’t being collected in the current outbreak.
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should have included this Newsweek bit as well:
-There’s precedent for this treatment approach, too. “We use this in other infectious diseases, and we can—and should—use that experience and apply it to Ebola,” says Heinrich Feldmann, the head of the National Institute of Health’s Laboratory of Virology. In Argentina, for example, infection of the Junin virus is often (and effectively) treated with blood transfusions from a Junin survivor.-
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Obviously there is now loads of stuff about this on the internet .
One of the points made (sorry forgot to bookmark it) Is that there are now many thousands of people who have been infected and are immune,and that they could be identified by a simple test and that they could be the front line , in Africa, to manage the treatment instead of people who would be susceptible to the disease.
I note further that the UK is sending 750 army medics to Africa, Whilst praiseworthy ,I think that is not the way to go.
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Very good point.
The people who are immune can at least be trained for simple duties and also be used to move supplies into the danger zone.
Disinfect after a DAY? I work with children and therefore wash and disinfect constantly. Certainly before I touch my face. – Think Africa and wiping sweat from your face.
Note that additional articles say that troops getting Ebola will be treated in the USA.
There are only 23 (biocontainment) beds in the entire US at 4 different hospitals. (from a commenter so open to question)
Hospitals:
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, – The Emory isolation unit has two beds
NIH in Bethesda, Maryland,
the University of Nebraska Medical Center
St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana
With four thousand grunts on the ground, I sure hope the Army has geared up to isolate and treat if needed any military personnel coming home with or without the disease!
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The ineptitude of the well-meaning is staggering.
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