Intrahepatic Marburg
Posted on 04/10/2005 4:24:58 AM PDT by Diogenesis
Marburg Airborne Transmission in Angola?
The deteriorating situation in Uige is raising the obvious question. Is Marburg transmitting through the air in Angola? Although there have always been warnings about transmission via contact with body fluids, the concern about coughing raises questions about ease of airborne transmission.
Initially most of the Marburg cases were children under the age of one, suggesting transmission via contaminated needles during childhood vaccinations. However, about 1 month ago the first health care worker died, and as noted above, that number has grown to 17. Although protective gear was in short supply initially, the deaths of health care workers are still being recorded.
The total number of Marburg cases alive is relative small. When the the WHO first announced the sequence results on March 23, there were only 7 Marburg patients alive. 95 out of 102 had died. The number diagnosed has risen to 213 and the number still alive has grown to 30, but the increase in patients alive simply reflects the fact that newly diagnosed patients are being tallied quicker than older existing cases are dying. As noted above, there are only 12 patients in the main hospital at the epicenter of the outbreak.
The ability of such a small number of patients to infect so many health care workers, especially after infection control efforts have been increased, raises the possibility that airborne transmission is fairly efficient. The current outbreak in Angola has a case fatality rate at or near 100%, high than any prior large outbreak of Marburg or Ebola. It has now begun transmitting in Luanda, and will easily eclipse the old record of 280 deaths set for Ebola in 1967.
Marburg has now been reported in 7 provinces in Angola, and all of these cases outside of Uige have also happened in the past several weeks. The widespread transmission, coupled with the near 100% fatality rate, suggests the Marburg virus is a recombinant, and the new virus may have increased its ability to transmit and kill.
Intrahepatic Marburg
I don't think airborne is the problem. But I wouldn't drink a brew there...
http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/10_04/10-04-soused-africa.htm
Whoa. Bird Flu is sounding pretty good about now.
That is one scary as hell thought.
I dunno, I hate to be one of those alarmist end days types, but there is some serious s#!t cooking on the disease fronts. Several nations newly going nuclear. Rapid changes in the ME. Global warming possibilities and climate changes. Eclipse marking a change in Popes.
How long can you mock and ignore without at least considering the possibiliy....especially if you are one of faith?
I'm not so much a believer in these things as I am curious about them, but it seems logical to a least take note of the warnings. It is interesting, to say the least.
I've read one report suggesting fruit bats might be a vector. The bats,it was guessed,might be spreading the disease by means of their droppings-some of which got onto fruit,which young children were apt to eat without washing.
No evidence was offered,but there was a parallel situation,in which fruit bats were found to be spreading another filovirus by this means.
Another (remote ? ) possibility was deliberate use of biowarfare agents by someone in the Congolese government.
The "Democratic Peoples' Republic" was pretty close to the Russians at one time,and might have "inherited" some of their nasties.
Clancy's Rainbow Six.
Close the airports.
Africa, as a continent, is almost totally ravaged. There are a billion people there, and probably 900 million are less than a month from starvation. The tribal wars have been devastating, the fall of European colonialism in Africa doomed them.
There is little doubt that Ebola and Marburg started there. The congo and central africa is still the place that has the highest genetic diversity on earth.
Only the Amazon basin might compare. And there's alot of nastys there too.
In case anyone is interested, I've located the report which speculates about bats as a disease vector:
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/askus/f?p=2400:1001:1259399917138472079::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:10002,28540
The reference is the 3rd posting on the page.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050404/full/050404-12.html
They are also suggesting it came from contaminates vaccine needles reused on the children. :-(
Additional problems were mentioned including lack of reliable electricity, which precluded use of the mobile lab, and burial customs which included washing of the dead body and drinking the water.
What is wrong with these people? It's a freekin' wonder they haven't gone extinct yet!
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