Ebola is surging in places it had been beaten back

Yahoo ^ | BOUBACAR DIALLO and SARAH DiLORENZO

[Qiviut]

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. Related Stories

The Macenta region, right on the Liberian border, had been one of the first places where the outbreak surfaced, but they hadn't seen a new case for weeks. So they packed up, leaving a handful of staff on stand-by. The outbreak was showing signs of slowing elsewhere as well.

Instead, new cases appeared across the border in Liberia and then spread across West Africa, carried by the sick and dying. Now, months later, Macenta is once again a hotspot.

The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control.

This time, the virus is traveling effortlessly across borders by plane, car and foot, shifting from forests to cities and springing up in clusters far from any previously known infections. Border closures, flight bans and mass quarantines have been ineffective.

"Everything we do is too small and too late," said Poncin. "We're always running after the epidemic."

Ebola has been able to follow its own course because West Africa lacks the health care workers it needs to monitor potential carriers and train communities in how to avoid catching the disease. People in contact with the sick have evaded surveillance, moving at will and hiding their illnesses until they infect others in turn. Whole villages, stricken by fear, have repeatedly shut themselves off for days or weeks, giving the virus more opportunities to whip around and skip someplace else.

[Qiviut]

Last sentence of article:

"As long there is one case of Ebola virus disease anywhere in the world and people are allowed to travel," Nigeria's health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, said recently, "every country in the world remains at risk."

[Delta Dawn]

I have to admit that I am a bit confused at this point.

This disease seems to be deadly in Africa. However, once our medical personnel return home with the infection, they seem to be all better in just a few days. I have a cold that is lasting longer than an ebola infection in an American.

If we have the cure, why have we not made it available to the African nations?

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping…

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[thackney]

Much attention has focused on the unproven drug ZMapp, which was given to seven patients, two of whom died. But the limited supply is now exhausted and its developer says it will take months to make even a modest amount.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/04/ebola-experts-antibodies-survivors-blood-potential-cure

[Black Agnes]

And I wonder about releasing people who are ‘cured’ but still harbor the virus to be transmitted sexually.

[silverleaf]

and so obama sends in the US military

[silverleaf]

what we have that keeps those few cases alive, is life support systems

but not enough to treat thousands of patients in the US much less abroad in a country/continent where a lot of rural populations believe in witch doctors

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Ebola is acting like a typical epidemic. The problem is that governments tend to make the same mistakes during an epidemic. And this is not entirely their fault, because they cannot see the invisible currents of epidemic flow.

In practical terms, the best reaction is seemingly overreaction. That is, epidemics ebb and surge; and it is when they seem to be ebbing, they are in fact spreading out.

So, for example, when patient zero shows symptoms, the assumption has to be that his entire family are infected, and that his entire town needs to be quarantined. (This is extremely difficult to do.)

When his town shows symptoms, his whole region needs to be quarantined, and his entire nation is at risk. Then, when there is a second outbreak outside of his region, his entire nation should be quarantined, and the rest of the world is at risk.

[scooby321]

Governments are not telling the truth is one I am sure that is happening

[DCBryan1]

Much attention has focused on the unproven drug ZMapp, which was given to seven patients, two of whom died. But the limited supply is now exhausted and its developer says it will take months to make even a modest amount.

It is very similar to WWII when the atomic bomb was introduced. Generals and Admirals wanted DOZENS of nuclear weapons to finish off the war, and found out that they would get 2 in 1945, and 6-8 in 1946.

When the generals and admirals got the sobering news that they would be few and far between, they knew they had to keep with the original game plan.

Unfortunately, we are at war with Ebola, an enemy that we can't see until its later stages and ZMAPP may not be the cure.

We should have stopped ALL commerical flights into and out of West Africa in June, when the cities started turning up ebola patients.....and they should have shut down all borders and shipyards after the first healthworker went down. Airdrop supplies and do a 21 day quaranteen on everyone else.

[null and void]

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

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...

[null and void]

However, once our medical personnel return home with the infection, they seem to be all better in just a few days.

Sample size=3
Recovered=2
Still sick=1

Pretty thin statistics...

I have a cold that is lasting longer than an ebola infection in an American.

Keep in mind that they were sick in Africa for an unknown period of time, symptomatic for up to a week, sick for the trip here and were, perhaps, through the worst of it by the time they got here.

[null and void]

But it’s still safe to import violently ill patents to the US, right?

Provided they are American Citizens, Americans are above the need for anything so pesky as a quarantine!

[Monkey Face]

Are we all gonna die, this time, Nully?

[Qiviut]

I don’t think we have a “cure”, although I think the doctors in the US are using ‘serum’ (in addition to ZMapp) from recovered Ebola patients to help the very few (3 so far?) transferred here by giving the patients ‘antibodies’ that survivors have developed. It’s experimental and not widely available, especially in a hot zone where medical staff are overwhelmed, under supplied, etc. This Ebola seems to be a 50-50 death rate, rather than the 90% that results from the Zaire strain of the virus. The key seems to be if you can intervene very early with hydration, electolytes, etc. and other supportive care, the odds of surviving go up considerably. I think a lot of the victims in Africa are coming in when very ill already. Just my impression from what I’ve been seeing/hearing in the reports. We’re hearing about all the deaths, too - not much on survivors.

Another wrinkle - the last doctor that I heard had Ebola & was transferred somewhere in Europe for treatment, was working in a pediatric unit and supposedly there were not active Ebola cases in that ward. Obviously, somebody had it! Another concerning issue .... doctors taking full precautions are coming down with it ... I suspect it’s when getting out of their protective suits, which is a time of high risk since the suits are contaminated. But still, medical personnel who know all the safety precautions are getting it, now this doctor in a supposedly safe ped ward, etc. Despite the CDC, etc. saying that our health care system will prevent what is happening in Africa, I don’t think it’s going to be as “easy” or simple to contain it here. We’ve been lied to before and I think we’re being lied to now to prevent panic .... but when we start getting Ebola here (and we will) then no matter what they say, panic will abound. Just my 2 cents ... and knowing a little something about human nature ... especially ‘low info’ human nature.

[Qiviut]

We’re gonna need a bigger cart!

************************************

Ain’t that the TRUTH!!!

[null and void]

We are all gonna die.

Eventually.

Of something.

[SunTzuWu]

If we have the cure, why have we not made it available to the African nations?

We don't have a cure for ANY virus. From herpes, to the common cold to Ebola, all we can do is treat the symptoms.

[Prospero]

There are vaccines in development, though that route is problematic. At least one, in Canada, appears very promising.

"The cure," which is far from proven to the satisfaction of any standards of development, is derived from Tobacco plants, and a process of refinement that mere starts at acres of this variety of nightshade (Solanaceae - which includes tomato -).

I'm not certain, but this strain of Ebola appears to have, in most patients, what may be a heretofore unusually long latency before symptom display period, 21 days. Though hemorrhagic viral diseases are particularly horrifying, these diseases usually display so rapidly their containment is correspondingly rapid, with previous outbreaks confined to a death count in the hundreds.

The habits of physical contact of family with the bodies of the dead hasn't helped.

It also hasn't helped that an area already saddled with a shortage of health care workers has lost whole hospitals of staff to the disease.

[donozark]

As Jocelyn Elders once said,”Weese all gonna die ahh some tin’, sometime.”