Anyone else worried about Ebola?

[Pat Barry]

Ebola also immobilizes most of it's carriers, before they can contact many people.

This is a crippling disease that very quickly incapacitates the victim.
It's readily preventable, with simple sanitary precautions.

It's more a threat to the Indian Peninsula and South east Asia
than North America.

It's prevalent near the Ebola river, where clean water is a luxury.

While it's outrageous that someone was permitted to travel out of Liberia,
after assisting a known Ebola victim, you can bet the travel restrictions
are coming. This disease flares, and each time it retreats to the
fauna that it doesn't kill, in the jungle.

What we can hope for is food aid to the places where people depend on "bush meat",
but it's likely to lead to intentional deforestation to eradicate the vector.

http://www.popsci.com/article/scienc...ou-might-think

Jim, I think that recent news has cast considerable doubt on the idea that it is readily preventible and also that it quickly incapacitates its victims quickly (its incubation period is up to 21 days - that's not quick to me).

[Scott Shepherd]

I turned on the radio in my car while driving from job to job a couple days ago and it was a guy that was a CEO of a major drug company. He was fairly upset at all the misinformation going on. He said this is NOT Ebola. He said the actual strain of Ebola is the nastiest thing on the face of earth and has a 100% fatality rate. He said it turns your whole body to liquid, bones and all, in 48 hours. There is no treatment. He said the Russians and USA tried to weaponise it many years ago and both abandoned it because once used, there was no way to stop it from wiping out the planet.

He said the only way they contained it was sealing off entire villages and letting it kill everyone there.

He said this isn't Ebola, it's what they called a sister strain of it, but it's not Ebola, if it was people's bodies would be turning to liquid in days and that's not what's happening. He also said real Ebola is airborne, that's why it was so nasty. For him to say it's the worst thing ever known to exist on the planet stressed how terrible it is.

He also called what's going around now by it's proper name but I can't recall it.

[Pat Barry]

If it was aerosol, all of those people in the slums would be dead. They live too close to each other and there's apparently a lot of misinformation going on in the zones with a lot of ebola. If this were influenza or something, it would be far more severe.

It's not that contagious compared to some things, even though it's very infectious once you have it.

You are bringing up a very good point about the aerosol type of transmission. Still, you wonder why the doctors and care givers take all the precautions they do if it is truly not possible to be airborne.

[David Weaver]

Well, if someone sneezes saliva onto you, or vomits on you, then you're in trouble. Or if you walk around and accidentally touch a hand full of live virus.

It's like the dentists with the face shields now. I never remember seeing that as a kid. I guess they don't want the chance of blood borne pathogens getting into their eyes.

[Sean Troy]

In regards to Ebola, this seems pretty weird: http://www.naturalnews.com/046290_Eb...it_motive.html

[Jim Matthews]

I don't know where you're getting your news feed.

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet."
- Abraham Lincoln, Vampire hunter

It's passed from an afflicted person, as they begin to die.
It can also be contracted by consuming improperly cooked wild game "bush meat".

It's like many contagious diseases, it spreads quickly in places with poor hygiene
and carries a justifiable horror among those that prefer "magic" to germ theory.

Soap, water and proper cooking of food do wonders to eradicate infectious disease.

Most of those afflicted, including the unfortunate soul in Texas, contracted the disease
while caring for someone they love - without the benefit of gloves, disinfectants or modern medical training.

Feel free to indulge in conspiracy theories, if you like.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html

[Jason Roehl]

I turned on the radio in my car while driving from job to job a couple days ago and it was a guy that was a CEO of a major drug company. He was fairly upset at all the misinformation going on. He said this is NOT Ebola. He said the actual strain of Ebola is the nastiest thing on the face of earth and has a 100% fatality rate. He said it turns your whole body to liquid, bones and all, in 48 hours. There is no treatment. He said the Russians and USA tried to weaponise it many years ago and both abandoned it because once used, there was no way to stop it from wiping out the planet.

He said the only way they contained it was sealing off entire villages and letting it kill everyone there.

He said this isn't Ebola, it's what they called a sister strain of it, but it's not Ebola, if it was people's bodies would be turning to liquid in days and that's not what's happening. He also said real Ebola is airborne, that's why it was so nasty. For him to say it's the worst thing ever known to exist on the planet stressed how terrible it is.

He also called what's going around now by it's proper name but I can't recall it.

http://courses.bio.indiana.edu/Z620-...la%20virus.pdf

Didn't find anything on a disease that causes total liquefaction of the body.

[Pat Barry]

Jim, I get my news from CBS, CNN and other such doubtful sources, so yes, please question them freely. In the end, thats good for everyone. As far as "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire hunter", I wasn't aware that was a reliable source.

Let me ask you if you think that the Ebola strain we are dealing with can be passed via mosquito or biting fly? If what it takes is bodily fluid, that seems a likely way to pass the disease, much like malaria I think it was.

I do agree, that in places like west Africa where hygiene is less than desirable (due to lack of clean water for example) then containing a disease like this is impossible. But, take a look at the good old USA and men in public restrooms, I'd hazard a estimate that more than 1/3 don't wash their hands - there you go for disease spreading mechanism right here. Makes you sick just thinking about it.

[David Weaver]

Jim, I get my news from CBS, CNN and other such doubtful sources, so yes, please question them freely. In the end, thats good for everyone. As far as "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire hunter", I wasn't aware that was a reliable source.

Let me ask you if you think that the Ebola strain we are dealing with can be passed via mosquito or biting fly? If what it takes is bodily fluid, that seems a likely way to pass the disease, much like malaria I think it was.

I do agree, that in places like west Africa where hygiene is less than desirable (due to lack of clean water for example) then containing a disease like this is impossible. But, take a look at the good old USA and men in public restrooms, I'd hazard a estimate that more than 1/3 don't wash their hands - there you go for disease spreading mechanism right here. Makes you sick just thinking about it.

It doesn't survive that long outside of a person's body unless the temperature is low. That's probably why sterilization is fairly easy (light bleach solution).

[Scott Shepherd]

http://courses.bio.indiana.edu/Z620-...la%20virus.pdf

Didn't find anything on a disease that causes total liquefaction of the body.

What he called in for, and was upset about, was that people are not using the right terms and they are coining the phrases against the wrong disease. He said Ebola is deadly and has a 100% fatality rate. He said what people are calling Ebola now is Marburg, which is does not have a 100% fatality rate. He was really hacked off at the media and why they keep making claims it's Ebola and not Marburg, and how they were just rewriting scientific facts that weren't accurate. He said Marburg is a sister strain of Ebola. The guy sounded like he was in his 60's and he really appeared to know his history about the disease from working around it for decades. He was a doctor, as well as the CEO of some drug or medical company.

He was very credible and sounded like he knew more about what he was talking about than anyone else I've seen on the news, but maybe he's wrong. I've tried to find the interview online, hoping it was archived somewhere, but since I didn't pay attention to his name at the time, and I don't even know what show it was on (don't listen to a lot of radio at any given time), it's hard to find.

Me? I have no idea. I'm not a doctor, lucky for all of you

[David Weaver]

Marburg is different and is not what the current group of ebola sufferers have. Ebola also does not appear to have a 100% fatality rate in any strain that I can see. wiki lists the 5 viruses that are credited with Ebola Virus Disease, and one of them is airborne. They also state that one of the ebola strains has been seen in an airborne virus before (it wiped out a bunch of primates in a quarantine near DC), but the humans exposed to it did not contract it in that case.

Sometimes people get on TV or the radio and want to prove that they know something esoteric to try to build their own credibility, but it doesn't really further the discussion at all.

[Phil Thien]

So here is a question: Why did Ebola blow up this time? Past outbreaks were more limited and confined (both time and space) and in a way that made them even a little more frightening, previous outbreaks quickly wiped out half a village or two, and then vanished.

Why are things different this time?

[Jason Roehl]

I saw the Wikipedia article, too, David. I suspect you're right about the guy Scott heard on the radio--there are plenty of people vying for attention.

I have a few contacts with people who regularly go to or occasionally live in Liberia, so I've gotten some first-hand information on the conditions there--less since the outbreak as the people I'm closest to are unable to go back to Liberia. The other contact is a Liberian who lives in Nigeria, but is in contact with his home village. 20+ of his extended family have died.

Pat-I've noticed that, too, about men's restrooms. It's nasty, but in Liberia, people urinate and defecate openly in the middle of the street (that's from a close friend who has done mission work there). Much of Monrovia's living conditions are downright disgusting. The country as a whole was only just beginning a hint of recovery from their 20-ish years of civil war. The Ebola outbreak has definitely set them back, and violence or even war may not be far off.

[Scott Shepherd]

Marburg is different and is not what the current group of ebola sufferers have.

That's where he disagrees with you. He said that's exactly what they have. The quick searches I saw, showed Ebola having as high as a 90% fatality rate, so that's not too far off what he was saying. I've heard about 4-5 people now saying that true Ebola is the wickedest disease on the planet and ever known to man.

[Jason Roehl]

So here is a question: Why did Ebola blow up this time? Past outbreaks were more limited and confined (both time and space) and in a way that made them even a little more frightening, previous outbreaks quickly wiped out half a village or two, and then vanished.

Why are things different this time?

Perhaps there was some chance travel of an infected person from a village to a more populated area that didn't happen before. People in West Africa aren't very mobile overall, and especially not in small, rural villages.