2014 Global Ebola Outbreak

[Anita18]

Interesting fact: people who contract ebola and survive cant contract that Ebola strain again.

This is a very good thing. Means one day we may be able to make a vaccine to immunize people against the virus.

That's always the case, dude. The only reason why it doesn't work with flu and colds is because there are hundreds of flu and cold virus strains.

The US doctor who survived, they gave his blood to another Ebola patient and he survived too. But transfusing blood across different blood types is deadly (clots immediately) so they can't do it for everyone. Only for patients with compatible blood types, until they can make a vaccine.

 

[Marvolo]

That's always the case, dude. The only reason why it doesn't work with flu and colds is because there are hundreds of flu and cold virus strains.

The US doctor who survived, they gave his blood to another Ebola patient and he survived too. But transfusing blood across different blood types is deadly (clots immediately) so they can't do it for everyone. Only for patients with compatible blood types, until they can make a vaccine.

There are multiple strains of Ebola as well, but only 5 have been identified as of now so I guess its nowhere near as many as flu and colds.

From what Ive read back in 2012 they had viable imunizers but the success rate then was only 99% and anything below 100% cant be tested on human subjects because if it fails to immunize and instead infects the test subject is getting a death sentence. Legally its unethical. Not sure why they wont just let terminally ill patients volunteer to be test subjects tho.

 

[Anita18]

There are multiple strains of Ebola as well, but only 5 have been identified as of now so I guess its nowhere near as many as flu and colds.

From what Ive read back in 2012 they had viable imunizers but the success rate then was only 99% and anything below 100% cant be tested on human subjects because if it fails to immunize and instead infects the test subject is getting a death sentence. Legally its unethical. Not sure why they wont just let terminally ill patients volunteer to be test subjects tho.

My thinking is that there isn't enough terminally ill Ebola patients in the US to properly test. We'd have to bring it to Africa and there's paperwork and stuff.

 

[AnneFan]

With this and IS, we face a very scary set of problems.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

With this and IS, we face a very scary set of problems.

Meh...

 

[Marvolo]

My thinking is that there isn't enough terminally ill Ebola patients in the US to properly test. We'd have to bring it to Africa and there's paperwork and stuff.

No, I mean terminally ill period. Offer it to anyone who is termanilly ill with anything. For instance, someone who has an inoperable brain tumor. Vaccinate them and then expose them to Ebola and see if they become symptomatic. All with the persons full consent, of course.

Do that enough times and we will know what works and what doesnt.

 

[Anita18]

No, I mean terminally ill period. Offer it to anyone who is termanilly ill with anything. For instance, someone who has an inoperable brain tumor. Vaccinate them and then expose them to Ebola and see if they become symptomatic. All with the persons full consent, of course.

Do that enough times and we will know what works and what doesnt.

I only have cursory experience with clinical trials, but what you suggested is very very much not okay. Consent aside, which is already a red flag.

Experimenting on people is haphazard enough. As someone who used to be a molecular biologist, I don't trust many population studies myself. There are just too many variables, and now you want to add "people terminally ill with anything so who knows what kind of weird mutations or conditions they have" to the mix. Scientists would not learn much, to the stringent requirements of any scientific experiment, FDA or not.

For instance, maybe someone terminally ill with cancer (and don't forget every cancer is different) would react differently to being exposed to the vaccine and/or Ebola than someone terminally ill with cystic fibrosis. There's no way you can keep track of all that stuff.

 

[Teelie]

Cracked has a good write up on why the Ebola scare is more about making money than anything else and how it isn't going to be spreading to anywhere with decent sanitary and medical facilities.

Scary sounding as hell but ultimately overblown, like every other "epidemic" that's touted as spreading into the U.S. only to burn out and disappear a few weeks or months later when some new distraction comes about.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Cracked has a good write up on why the Ebola scare is more about making money than anything else and how it isn't going to be spreading to anywhere with decent sanitary and medical facilities.

Scary sounding as hell but ultimately overblown, like every other "epidemic" that's touted as spreading into the U.S. only to burn out and disappear a few weeks or months later when some new distraction comes about.

There were some reports about that during the Swine Flu scare in 2009, about corruption in the World Health Organization.

But what do you expect from doctors?

 

[Teelie]

I remember the WHO calling the alarm on swine flu and while it killed a lot of people it was less than the more common diseases do every year, year after year.

People are scared of Ebola because the media is dumping all this scare-mongering news and misinformation and unreliable information out there. People hear truthfully how it's an awful way to go but they don't get the part where to catch it is much harder than catching almost any other commonly deadly disease we can come in contact with.

Magazines want to sell magazines, websites want pageviews, and attention-hungry *******s want attention. The world keeps spinning, and meanwhile we get headlines that look like they should be covered in apocalypse dust:

Terrifying. Well, unless you actually read the article, which ended up being more about government bureaucracy than bleeding out of the anus. By their own admission, Bloomberg needed to punch up the fear factor to get everyone's attention (sell copies).

The Cracked article (which due to language on the site I'm not linking to) brings up the point more people have died from the black plague in the past century than people who've died from Ebola since the 1970's.

Of course, the flu kills only old people, kids, and really dumb adults -- and Ebola is some straight-up plague ****, right? Only, hey, you know what else is some plague ****? The ****ing plague, which infects between 1,000 and 2,000 dupes a year, with 1,000 cases in the U.S. between 1900 and 2010. We would say that Ebola is the tortoise in this body-count race, but it turns out that tortoises **** up way more people than Ebola could ever hope. It's a clowny, garbage disease. **** Ebola.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I find the response to the dog in Spain to be interesting.

What does it say about a species that values the life of a pet more than its own members?

Or perhaps dogs are simply that awesome.

Admittedly,

 

[Teelie]

I think killing the dog because of Ebola is equally paranoid and pointless. The dog did not get Ebola unless it licked up some vomit or something from the woman which I doubt happened at all.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Let's hope whoever put him down gets ebola.

Karma.

 

[Teelie]

I forgot the obvious too: You would then have to either touch and then ingest the dog's vomit or get bitten by the dog hard enough to contract it, which is unlikely if basic precautions are taken.

I don't know if the dog was put down or not but isn't quarantining it a simple way to find out?

 

[Red Mask]

I feel sorry for the West African countries that were too late in containing the outbreak. Some were capable and prepared to take measures but it's the poorest countries that have suffered. According to this article, Sierra Leone (ranked as one of the poorest countries in the World) has a huge social divide that shows just who gets protected and who suffers the most:

http://www.thinkafricapress.com/sierra-leone/life-time-ebola

Corruption, bribery, economic divide, it's no wonder some patients ran away in the early weeks of the outbreak. Although I'm not excusing their actions, it is sad just how many couldn't properly handle this.

 

[Marvolo]

I forgot the obvious too: You would then have to either touch and then ingest the dog's vomit or get bitten by the dog hard enough to contract it, which is unlikely if basic precautions are taken.

I don't know if the dog was put down or not but isn't quarantining it a simple way to find out?

Dogs can transfer Ebola to humans even when they aren't symptomatic. So the dog could infect someone by licking them. That being said, killing the dog was a knee jerk reaction. It could have been studied at the very least. And it wouldn't have been difficult to contain, transfer, and quarantine a small dog.

Can your dog give you Ebola - DNews
[YT]VOYyeuQ7k0M[/YT]

Oh and that magazine cover is a prime example of repulsive greed. Scaring the public and sensationalizing a situation that has killed thousands to make a buck is disgraceful.

 

[Marvolo]

A Texas health care worker who provided hospital care for the now deceased Mr. Duncan has tested positive for the virus.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

Dogs can transfer Ebola to humans even when they aren't symptomatic. So the dog could infect someone by licking them. That being said, killing the dog was a knee jerk reaction. It could have been studied at the very least. And it wouldn't have been difficult to contain, transfer, and quarantine a small dog.

I guess they were too lazy to put forth the effort.

 

[Teelie]

Or caught up in the paranoia that the dog is going to give them the Ebola. Even though the dog can infect someone it doesn't change the requirements to get infected which is direct contact with infected fluids that then must get into your body.

 

[Superwoman Prime]

Could be, Teelie.

What about drinking from the same straw as an infected person? Or open-mouthed kissing?

 

[Roose Bolton]

Or oral sex?

 

[DeadPresident]

The more I read people's responses the more I realize they're not afraid of Ebola, they just doubt the competence of the medical resources available to deal with it. Which apparently they should be.

 

[Marvolo]

Yeah, for me its less about catching it, and more about modern medicine being ill equipped to help me survive it. Puts one thing in perspective tho. How terrifying it would have been to live before the days of penicillin and proper hygiene and knowledge of germs. We really take modern medicine for granted.

 

[Anita18]

The more I read people's responses the more I realize they're not afraid of Ebola, they just doubt the competence of the medical resources available to deal with it. Which apparently they should be.

I think it's both. Ebola is a scary disease with Hollywood-appropriate symptoms. Puking and pooping blood, bleeding from orifices is pretty crazy. And over half of people who get it die. You honestly couldn't make up a more dramatic disease.

They got this newest case early. On another forum I go to, a poster does work with Ebola patients in West Africa, for a medical non-profit, and they take their temperature twice a day, and go in for observation when they detect even a low fever. That's likely how the Dallas healthcare worker found out as well. It's very VERY unlikely that they were symptomatic for all that long. Or carried a high-enough viral load in their saliva, sweat, or genital fluids to transmit it that way.

And as for the Spanish nurse who has Ebola, she recalled that she touched her gloved hand to her face while she was taking her protective suit off. So that explains how she got it. You cannot do those kinds of things when you wear protective gear!

It's also quite telling that it's biologists and healthcare workers in the forums I go to, that have been the most calm about Ebola.

 

[Marvolo]

A patient in Massachusetts who recently returned from Liberia is displaying symptoms of Ebola and has been transferred from Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates hospital in Braintree, Massachusetts to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. It isnt confirmed whether the person has the virus.