Because they are living and working in an area of outbreak, in close contact with victims AND ASSYMPTOMATIC CARRIERS.
Every person returning from West Africa should be placed in 21 day quarantine. Better yet, ban travel from those countries.
I am convinced one of the reasons so many healthcare workers are getting it in Africa is because they are washing and re-using the gloves, isolation garb, syringes, etc. All that stuff should be burned after initial use.
MRS. AV
Ping...
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Because their infection does not fit the 0bama regime's narrative that serves as an excuse for bringing ebola to America.
I have never had a doubt it is airborne. The government is, and always has been, a liar. I also think that the ability to catch AIDS was downplayed to prevent homos from being quarantined and impeding their agenda.
The airports are still open.
Therefore, the rest of the “all-out response” is obviously nonsense.
A week ago, they could have closed the airports in 3 countries + Bamako. Now, if the Rwanda story is true, the scope will have to be much larger. If JNB is still receiving flights from the hot zone, this could turn into a disaster of unimaginable scale.
Because the incubation period is 20 days or so. Most of them had no idea what they were treating until they were already infected.
This is pretty common in these type of outbreaks.
Perhaps because they don’t take the appropriate precautions?
When dealing with blood born pathogens, you have to use AAMI PB70 level 4 gowns (which have been tested to be both impermeable and to prevent the passage of virus particles). Even in the States, it is very common for health care personnel to use lower level gowns and barriers when facing possible exposure to blood born pathogens. It is a risk, but most of the time the health care workers win the bet.
The odds change dramatically when you are dealing with an exceptionally virulent blood borne pathogen like ebola.
My guess is that almost no-one in the affected area even has the more expensive AAMI PB70 level 4 gowns (they are comparatively much more expensive). I would also bet the WHO (which always stresses economics over safety) is not telling African’s to use the more expensive gowns. (I have always suspected their since with-drawn advice to the 3rd world that it was okay to reuse disposable syringes if you ran water with beach through them was responsible for Middle Class vector of the spread of AIDS in Africa, but that is just speculation on my part).
And then there is the whole airborne vector for spreading ebola as claimed in the Reston VA outbreak.
So that we will be sympathetic and not complain when 0 lets thousands into the USA for “free” treatment on 0bamacare.
Easy answer. Third-world medical facility, equipment, and procedures.
“If this is true, then how have more than 170 health workers caught the disease? These workers are dressed head to toe in suits that are specifically designed to prevent the spread of the virus.”
Incorrect assumption. The vast majority of the health workers likely had minimal protection. This means ordinary surgical masks and rubber gloves.
“(ordinary) surgical masks are primarily designed to protect the environment from the wearer, whereas N95 respirators are supposed to protect the wearer from the environment.”
Infectious Ebola virions are usually 920nm (nanometers) in length, 80nm in diameter. N95 respirators are designed to filter out viruses from 10 to 80nm in size, and the larger they are, the more effectively they are filtered. Over 80nm they should be entirely filtered.
However, breathing is not the only way to get the virus. It can have ready access through the eyes, so surgical protective glasses are a must.
The third way the virus can infect is through physical contamination. This means that all clothing and equipment must be decontaminated either chemically, or in an autoclave. Shoes are second most contaminated after hands.
Importantly, since gloved hands get the most physical contamination, you cannot just peel the gloves off, or you might get contamination on your skin from the “peeling hand”. So you must first decontaminate your gloved hands, and then peel and discard your gloves.
Likewise, protective shoe coverings, if you have them, also need decontamination before removing for discard.
With garments, sleeves are the most contaminated part, so it is essential that you put on a different blouse in between patients. This is why plasticized paper surgical garments are popular these days.
Bottom line: these health care workers likely were unable to protect themselves, or did not properly decontaminate themselves.
I suspect that, while very dangerous, it is not so dangerous as its PR. I remember late in the SARS attempt to gin up Panic that SARS was claimed to have death rates that at first were 50% or more. That estimation declined over the course of the Official Panic. Then there was a doctor who was treating SARS in an Anatolian village. Instead of counting only the people who got sick and needed treatment, he tested the whole village and found that virtually everyone in the village had developed antibodies and there were only a couple of deaths. That showed that SARS was more like a widespread but mild Flu. That was all reported once and disappeared. The Hype went on but interest was waning as no one was dying in news consumers’ neighborhoods and it dropped off the charts.