264 replies to this topic

[cw68]

Nbcwashington.com is reporting that a patient who recently was in Nigeria had been admitted with Ebola-like symptoms.

[bordercolliefan]

What I hear when the president says "ebola outbreak" is many, many people getting it, not a handfull of people.

Agreed. No one in their right mind would expect a 100% guarantee that no one with a (then-unsymptomatic) case of Ebola could ever enter the U.S.

That said, this episode is a tragedy of errors and should never have unfolded this way. Unfortunately, neither Obama nor the CDC can be in every hospital in America to ride herd on nurses who are (charitably) overworked or (less charitably) stupid.

[4thgenFolsomite]

to me an outbreak is when an uninfected person here becomes infected by someone who brings it in.  that is how they were defining it way back when it started in east Africa.  but regardless, lets get past the politics and deal with the situation to keep it controlled. 

[supermom]

Well, in this situation, I hate to say it-- but politics has made a huge impact in the possibility of infectious spreading. So has an apathetic set of laws and health regulatory systems that should have been implemented at the start of the outbreak in Africa.

 

 

I do think that containment should not include allowing free travel between countries for ordinary citizens unless they have agreed to a very strict and institutionalized protocol for a full duration of the known disease infectious time period.  (21 days for Ebola).

 

that should include the missionaries and free borders doctors and healthcare workers.

[supermom]

BBC News now says a nurse in Spain has contracted Ebola from a priest who died in Madrid. Apparently she is the first known case to contract the disease outside of Africa ....

my cut and paste to the website is going phlooey or I would link it. Sorry.

[bordercolliefan]

Did any of you catch this article in the Bee yesterday? A bit scary...

http://www.sacbee.co...orry-virus.html

. . . . Yet some scientists who have long studied Ebola say such assurances are premature - and they are concerned about what is not known about the strain now on the loose. It is an Ebola outbreak like none seen before, jumping from the bush to urban areas, giving the virus more opportunities to evolve as it passes through multiple human hosts.

Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

"We just don't have the data to exclude it," said Peters, who continues to research viral diseases at the University of Texas in Galveston.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government's massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. "Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here."

If Ebola were to mutate on its path from human to human, said Russell and other scientists, its virulence might wane - or it might spread in ways not observed during past outbreaks, which were stopped after transmission among just two to three people, before the virus had a greater chance to evolve. The present outbreak in West Africa has killed approximately 3,400 people, and there is no medical cure for Ebola.

"I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Russell said. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man. ... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.co...l#storylink=cpy

[nomad]

Dallas Ebola patient has died.

[ducky]

Did any of you catch this article in the Bee yesterday? A bit scary...

http://www.sacbee.co...orry-virus.html

. . . . Yet some scientists who have long studied Ebola say such assurances are premature - and they are concerned about what is not known about the strain now on the loose. It is an Ebola outbreak like none seen before, jumping from the bush to urban areas, giving the virus more opportunities to evolve as it passes through multiple human hosts.

Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

"We just don't have the data to exclude it," said Peters, who continues to research viral diseases at the University of Texas in Galveston.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government's massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. "Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here."

If Ebola were to mutate on its path from human to human, said Russell and other scientists, its virulence might wane - or it might spread in ways not observed during past outbreaks, which were stopped after transmission among just two to three people, before the virus had a greater chance to evolve. The present outbreak in West Africa has killed approximately 3,400 people, and there is no medical cure for Ebola.

"I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Russell said. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man. ... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.co...l#storylink=cpy

 

That is scary.  This is spreading like it never has before.  I think this is a different animal and possibly more communicable than previous variations.  If the virus has mutated, the new screening procedures they are trying to put in place may already be obsolete.

[4thgenFolsomite]

don't panic!  I know people are.  there are actually people in some more remote locations that are figuring out how to cut their towns off from the outside world.  seriously.  be more afraid of the entero virus.  that is a real concern.

[ducky]

don't panic!  I know people are.  there are actually people in some more remote locations that are figuring out how to cut their towns off from the outside world.  seriously.  be more afraid of the entero virus.  that is a real concern.

They are both a concern.  I agree panic doesn't help anything.

[bordercolliefan]

The case of the Spanish nurse shows how difficult it is to do everything 100% right to prevent contagion. Apparently she only entered the patient's room twice (once after he had died), both times in full protective gear, yet she managed to contract the disease.

On the other hand, it seems like good news that none of the Texas patient's relatives have gotten sick (yet).

[supermom]

I wonder if she contracted the virus from touching the bio suit as she was taking it off.

[bordercolliefan]

A sad aside to the Spanish nurse case: authorities insisted that her dog be put down. At first I thought that was just bizarre hysteria, but I guess there is some evidence that dogs may be able to shed the virus, though they don't become symptomatic.

http://www.cnn.com/2....html?hpt=hp_t1

[4thgenFolsomite]

its just plain odd that the woman who was sleeping in the same bed with the man who just died in Texas when he was showing symptoms (sweating with fever, vomiting, diarrhea) would not have contracted the disease.  I mean, how much closer could you get?

[bordercolliefan]

its just plain odd that the woman who was sleeping in the same bed with the man who just died in Texas when he was showing symptoms (sweating with fever, vomiting, diarrhea) would not have contracted the disease.  I mean, how much closer could you get?

I know. Well, her 21-day incubation period is not up, so she still may get it.

It may be that as we research this disease further, it will turn out there are some people with a natural immunity to it.