Ebola ‘out of control’: Doctors Without Borders

Associated Press ^ | Jun 20, 2014 8:53 AM EDT

[Olog-hai]

A senior official for Doctors Without Borders says the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is “totally out of control” and that the medical group is stretched to the limit in its capacity to respond. […]

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, Ebola has already been linked to more than 330 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. …

[cycjec]

strict quarantine works IIRC.a a book I read about one
area in Africa years ago detailed a smallpox epidemic;
no one could go in or out. It ended; note that their
food was almost all produced locally and they were without
electric power, etc.

[cycjec]

strict quarantine works IIRC.a a book I read about one
area in Africa years ago detailed a smallpox epidemic;
no one could go in or out. It ended; note that their
food was almost all produced locally and they were without
electric power, etc.

[cycjec]

HIV+ people live quite a while, even without optimal treatment. Treating them is a perfect Cloward Piven
strategy.

[jetson]

All we need is a couple of these kids coming over the border infected with something like this to really screw us up.

[DuncanWaring]

One would think he'd be concerned with his daughters catching something ...

You don't really think he cares about them, do you?

Remember his crack about not wanting them to be "punished with a baby"?

That baby would have been his grandchild.

He doesn't care about his grandchildren, he doesn't care about his children, he doesn't even care about himself.

All he cares about is "Death to the Great Satan".

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[null and void]

Done, and you’re quite welcome!

[TEXOKIE]

Interesting find. Thanks.

[exDemMom]

How many deaths does the U.S. experience every year just from influenza?

Around 40,000 to 50,000 people die from influenza every year.

The big fear about Ebola is its case fatality rate, which is well over 50% and can run up to 90% in some strains. It is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids, so is not as contagious as flu. If Ebola were to somehow become highly contagious, the results could be devastating. However, most viruses show an inverse relationship between lethality and contagiousness--if Ebola is the same way, then it would become less lethal if it became more contagious.

[Kozak]

More likely the Bronx or Newark. People don’t walk here from Africa, they fly...

[blam]

"People don’t walk here from Africa, they fly..."

LUZIA - Second Oldest Human Skeleton Ever Found In The Americas

[Bigg Red]

Wow!

[Bigg Red]

So the fruit bat is the vector, but it is spread from human to human through bodily fluids?

[Blueflag]

Essentially, the virus lives naturally in one or more animal hosts without acting as a pathogen. Fruit bats, other bats, perhaps primates and monkeys, etc., — all suspects. But the virus HAS been found in fruit bats, and reportedly some primates (chimps and Gorillas) can fall ill from Ebola - not the bats.

so ...

If the bat bites you (they are trapped and eaten) ...
If bat (or other carrier) urine/dung is on your hands/food and you ingest it/ wipe your eyes/nose/ mouth ... the virus can get in ‘you.’

Re-use of needles by addicts and healthcare workers is another vector.

Then as you become ill, you have diarrhea, you vomit a bloody vomit, you hemorrhage fluid out your eyes, nose and mouth. It is a gross illness, as any hemorrhagic fever is. Ebola is just one of the worst.

With all that leakage and the contamination that results, Ebola spreads through contact with infected people, clothing, surroundings, etc.

A sick Ebola patient is not mobile. They are bed-ridden at best. I don’t know the time span from exposure/infection to presenting with symptoms, except that the CDC characterizes it as “abruptly.” Yikers; for instance it’s generally about 1-4 days for influenza or SARS, so these ‘flu’ people can be quite mobile as carriers/hosts before presenting with visible symptoms.

MODERN medicine environments can ‘care’ for an Ebola patient with manageable risks.

In the UNLIKELY event the virus broadly entered the US population, it would be a genuine quarantine/ shelter in place/ bug out/ don’t interact for 30 days. The sick die fast. 30 days, presuming 0dummer closed the borders, would be enough to shut down all human-to-human vectors in the US, IMHO.

Ebola is nasty, but is is NOT a 1st world population killer.

H5N1 - the so-called bird flu - were it ever to develop a human to human vector - DOES represent a very real danger to the human population. 50+% deaths, directly and from social/civil disruption are plausible. THAT is a 90 day or more outbreak isolation event. The movie Outbreak gets close, but gets too political, of course. IIRC in that movie it is a porcine virus that kills patient 0, and then spreads via air travel, or maybe that was the World War Z story ... I forget. The models all say the same thing - it’s just a question of speed and lethality.

[Bigg Red]

Thank you for that information.

Yikes!