Ebola virus

[PennyQuilts]

Probably my biggest fear besides heights. They are having a hard time controlling it in Africa and families have been hiding their sick members to avoid them being placed in quarantine to die alone. They are closing the minor border crossings in Liberia but at the rate it's going, it's going to jump.


I would rather be hit by an asteroid.

[kelroy55]

I've only read a little so far but have they said where and how it started?

[PennyQuilts]

I've only read a little so far but have they said where and how it started?

As I understand it, there are several different strains of Ebola and it has been around awhile. I think I read that bats can carry it. It is in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Liberia and Guinea. Here is a European link:

What is the Ebola virus, and how worried should we be? - Telegraph

[Dennis Heaton]

From 12 years ago...

Ebola Outbreak in North America? - ABC News

[kelroy55]

Scary stuff

[betts]

Hopefully the CDC is feverishly (pun intended) supporting work on a vaccine. They've had a few years warning.

[Uncle Slayton]

Probably my biggest fear besides heights. They are having a hard time controlling it in Africa and families have been hiding their sick members to avoid them being placed in quarantine to die alone. They are closing the minor border crossings in Liberia but at the rate it's going, it's going to jump.


I would rather be hit by an asteroid.

Gotta dust off my copy of "The Stand". It's beginning to look a little Stephen King-y.

[PennyQuilts]

Gotta dust off my copy of "The Stand". It's beginning to look a little Stephen King-y.

The Hot Zone... [shudder!]

[RadicalModerate]

Just reading the words, "The Hot Zone"--in reference to a book that I once read, many years ago, makes me cringe.
It was one of those books that somehow sticks with one subconsciously.
Remember how it started with that guy exploring a cave somewhere in central Africa, around the time and place of Idi Amin, and disturbing what never should have been disturbed? Plus all the batsh*t and stuff. It was sort of like Dr. No meets Michael Crichton . . . Except it was FOR REAL.

Did Stephen King write "Cujo" before or after "The Hot Zone"?

Is this a case of Life--or more accurately Death--Imitating Art?

[PennyQuilts]

Yeah, that's the book, RM - and it is nonfiction.

[Uncle Slayton]

And now, Sierra Leone's top specialist in viral hemorrhagic fevers has died of the disease. Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor dies from virus

[silvergrove]

The Hot Zone... [shudder!]

The Hot Zone was one of the books that helped inspire me to get my Ph.D. in microbiology.

[PennyQuilts]

Well then, Silver, you are hereby appointed as the OKCTALK resident expert if ebola jumps and we need someone to talk us down off the ceiling. . I am scaring myself by re-reading the Hot Zone, btw.

[silvergrove]

Well then, Silver, you are hereby appointed as the OKCTALK resident expert if ebola jumps and we need someone to talk us down off the ceiling. . I am scaring myself by re-reading the Hot Zone, btw.

My understanding of Ebola is that human to human transmission occurs through contact with bodily fluids (ie like blood). I'm not sure it spreads as well through aerosol transmission (ie like sneezing or coughing, which is how influenza spreads). Even if it does jump to the United States, quarantine would be enforced almost immediately to isolate the patient and limit spread of the pathogen.

The other thing that works against the Ebola virus is ironically, its lethality. A "good" pathogen will infect its host but not kill its host. It's a dead end for it, since if the host dies, it dies too. Basically it kills too fast to spread from human to human effectively. If Ebola acted like influenza, it would have jumped continents already. Successful viral pathogens like HIV remains in the host, evades the immune response, and not outright kill the host until it has the chance to spread to more hosts. If anything, we are an accidental host for the Ebola virus, albeit with deadly consequences.

So you're probably good unless you play with Ebola-infected blood.

[PennyQuilts]

My understanding of Ebola is that human to human transmission occurs through contact with bodily fluids (ie like blood). I'm not sure it spreads as well through aerosol transmission (ie like sneezing or coughing, which is how influenza spreads). Even if it does jump to the United States, quarantine would be enforced almost immediately to isolate the patient and limit spread of the pathogen.

The other thing that works against the Ebola virus is ironically, its lethality. A "good" pathogen will infect its host but not kill its host. It's a dead end for it, since if the host dies, it dies too. Basically it kills too fast to spread from human to human effectively. If Ebola acted like influenza, it would have jumped continents already. Successful viral pathogens like HIV remains in the host, evades the immune response, and not outright kill the host until it has the chance to spread to more hosts. If anything, we are an accidental host for the Ebola virus, albeit with deadly consequences.

So you're probably good unless you play with Ebola-infected blood.

See, you are already doing a great job. Note to self, avoid playing with Ebola-infected blood. . According to what I've read, a host isn't contagious unless they are symptomatic. I hope that is true.

[PennyQuilts]

I have some questions and haven't found the answers to them - maybe someone else knows.

1 - They are bringing the two American ebola patients back from Africa to Atlanta to be treated. Who gave permission to do this?
2 - What care will these patients get that they wouldn't get there? If they don't get different care, why did they bring them here?
3 - If other Americans in Africa get the disease, will they bring them here? Will they go to the same hospital? Has a precedent been set? How can they tell a different American that they will be treated differently? Will they bring a different national working for an American organization back to the states for treatment if they get sick?

I would want my loved one here, of course, but I haven't seen anything to indicate they will get better care, here since they are getting supportive care and not anything else. Will the charity be paying the additional costs of transport and staffing at the hospital? I just don't really understand why they are doing this. With critically ill patients, why move them to a separate continent? Is this to allow the hospital to study it?

[Chadanth]

I have some questions and haven't found the answers to them - maybe someone else knows.

1 - They are bringing the two American ebola patients back from Africa to Atlanta to be treated. Who gave permission to do this?
2 - What care will these patients get that they wouldn't get there? If they don't get different care, why did they bring them here?
3 - If other Americans in Africa get the disease, will they bring them here? Will they go to the same hospital? Has a precedent been set? How can they tell a different American that they will be treated differently? Will they bring a different national working for an American organization back to the states for treatment if they get sick?

I would want my loved one here, of course, but I haven't seen anything to indicate they will get better care, here since they are getting supportive care and not anything else. Will the charity be paying the additional costs of transport and staffing at the hospital? I just don't really understand why they are doing this. With critically ill patients, why move them to a separate continent? Is this to allow the hospital to study it?

Just some moderately informed and assumptive answer:
1. Permission would come from VERY high up in the government, probably from a cabinet appointee or signed off by the president himself. There are a lot of protocols out there for dealing with things like this, and Ebola is considered to be among the more dangerous contagions (obviously).
2. It's not difficult to assume that the patients would get exponentially better care at the cdc or Emory than they would in west Africa. It also allows for the disease to be studied in a more controlled environment.
3. I still think it's a bad idea, despite the presumption that American standards of hygiene would make the disease harder to spread even if it gets out. You never know.

[David]

My understanding of Ebola is that human to human transmission occurs through contact with bodily fluids (ie like blood). I'm not sure it spreads as well through aerosol transmission (ie like sneezing or coughing, which is how influenza spreads). Even if it does jump to the United States, quarantine would be enforced almost immediately to isolate the patient and limit spread of the pathogen.

The other thing that works against the Ebola virus is ironically, its lethality. A "good" pathogen will infect its host but not kill its host. It's a dead end for it, since if the host dies, it dies too. Basically it kills too fast to spread from human to human effectively. If Ebola acted like influenza, it would have jumped continents already. Successful viral pathogens like HIV remains in the host, evades the immune response, and not outright kill the host until it has the chance to spread to more hosts. If anything, we are an accidental host for the Ebola virus, albeit with deadly consequences.

So you're probably good unless you play with Ebola-infected blood.

That more or less matches my layman's understanding, which is why I haven't been too concerned about this hitting the US or Europe (or really any first world country) and spreading like wildfire. Lots of terrible potential for any country that cannot properly manage to implement proper quarantines, though.

[PennyQuilts]

Just some moderately informed and assumptive answer:
1. Permission would come from VERY high up in the government, probably from a cabinet appointee or signed off by the president himself. There are a lot of protocols out there for dealing with things like this, and Ebola is considered to be among the more dangerous contagions (obviously).
2. It's not difficult to assume that the patients would get exponentially better care at the cdc or Emory than they would in west Africa. It also allows for the disease to be studied in a more controlled environment.
3. I still think it's a bad idea, despite the presumption that American standards of hygiene would make the disease harder to spread even if it gets out. You never know.

It is frightening beyond belief to think that it might get out but I've been not focusing on that. My personal bewilderment has been whether this is a new policy if Americans or nationals working for Americans fall ill. It is one thing to send two people to a controlled setting (separate flights, btw, because they lack additional secure transport). It is another to expand this to bring in additional patients, different hospitals, blah, blah. I can see the comfort that it might bring a family to have a loved one on American shores. I get that. But I don't really see how this is a net benefit for the country and the risks are just so high.

[BBatesokc]

Personally, I think too many American's have been watching too many zombie apocalypse movies (or disease outbreak type movies in general). The short incubation period, high mortality rate and close contact requirement for transmission are all huge strikes against Ebola being a serious wide scale health threat in the US in this day and age - at the least the current strains. Don't know if its a retro-mutating virus like HIV, so that could all change in the future.

[silvergrove]

Just some moderately informed and assumptive answer:
1. Permission would come from VERY high up in the government, probably from a cabinet appointee or signed off by the president himself. There are a lot of protocols out there for dealing with things like this, and Ebola is considered to be among the more dangerous contagions (obviously).
2. It's not difficult to assume that the patients would get exponentially better care at the cdc or Emory than they would in west Africa. It also allows for the disease to be studied in a more controlled environment.
3. I still think it's a bad idea, despite the presumption that American standards of hygiene would make the disease harder to spread even if it gets out. You never know.

Mostly yes, and perhaps there might be some experimental treatment that might be awaiting the afflicted once they arrive here. For point 3 though, I don't think it sets dangerous precedent. Ebola is not as contagious as the flu so its okay if they're here. We do have centers that are equipped with the necessary precautions, ie negative pressure rooms and BSL-4 facilities.

[silvergrove]

Personally, I think too many American's have been watching too many zombie apocalypse movies (or disease outbreak type movies in general). The short incubation period, high mortality rate and close contact requirement for transmission are all huge strikes against Ebola being a serious wide scale health threat in the US in this day and age - at the least the current strains. Don't know if its a retro-mutating virus like HIV, so that could all change in the future.

Ebola isn't a retrovirus like HIV but as it is an RNA virus, it would have a higher mutation rate...

[Dustin]

I can't believe they are letting it cross the ocean...

[silvergrove]

It is frightening beyond belief to think that it might get out but I've been not focusing on that. My personal bewilderment has been whether this is a new policy if Americans or nationals working for Americans fall ill. It is one thing to send two people to a controlled setting (separate flights, btw, because they lack additional secure transport). It is another to expand this to bring in additional patients, different hospitals, blah, blah. I can see the comfort that it might bring a family to have a loved one on American shores. I get that. But I don't really see how this is a net benefit for the country and the risks are just so high.

I think the US rushing Dr. Brantly home for treatment is due to the fact that he's one of the few medical doctors in the world with firsthand experience of fighting this virus. I think public outcry is misguided due to preconceived notions of what this virus can and cannot do. If I remember correctly, a single influenza season has killed more people than the Ebola virus had in its entire known existence.

It just seems scarier since we don't know it as well and is of an exotic origin. I would be more worried about another Spanish flu pandemic than an Ebola outbreak.

[David]

Worries about precedent setting are unfounded in my opinion. Everyone actually involved in this are highly trained professionals who understand what different diseases and different circumstances actually mean. Don't think that they are going to freely fly a theoretical future super virus into the country just because they flew Ebola in once. Similarly, they aren't going to start flying hundreds of Ebola cases in either.