Ebola coming to a town near you.

[68ZooM]

well I sure hope they take all precautions that they possibly can, twice over.... that is most definitely something we don't need over here.

[FLOOB]

Vigilant quarantine is the best tool we have against the spread of ebola. Which means not transporting ebola and the people who harbor it, as harsh as that may seem. It's a very containable disease because of the rapid onset of symptoms. Having said that, in the absence of any ebola immunization it's going to spread to other continents. Maybe not now, maybe not ten years from now, maybe not fifty. But it's an eventuality as long as our only countermeasure is isolation.

[XxDaSTaRxx]

Don't let this worry you guys. Just pay attention and pray for those who have it.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/08/01/why-youre-not-going-to-get-ebola-in-the-u-s/

“This is a tragic, painful, dreadful, merciless virus. It is the largest, most complex outbreak that we know of in history,” Frieden said. “We at CDC are surging our response along with others. Although it will not be quick and it will not be easy, we do know how to stop Ebola."

EDIT: Oh and this is only spread through bodily fluids. So unless you're a vampire, drinking from a sewer, or just french kissing somebody who's contracted it, you're fine.

[Brooke]

There is risk in transporting infected people.  How much depends.  It depends on communicability, lethality if infected, whether or not there is effective treatment, and safeguards.  Ebola is highly lethal, with no good treatments -- so you can't get much worse there.  The only "good" thing is that, while it is obviously communicable, for various reasons, it isn't as communicable as influenza, TB, syphilis, etc.  However, it does have an incubation time of 2-20 days, during which an infected individual is asymptomatic and for at least some of it is infectious.

This is all fine if no one else gets infected and spreads it to other people.  Odds of that are high.

This is all not fine if someone gets it and starts spreading it to others.  Odds of that are low.  But not zero.  Keep in mind that the doctors who got infected surely know the ways to safeguard themselves against infection, yet got infected.

So, is it a good decision to do it or a bad one?  Different people will have different answers to that.  It's like flipping a coin 20 times.  If you get tails 20 times in a row, you are dead.  If you don't get 20 tails in a row, you get X.  For some value of X, the gamble is worth it to some people and not to others.

[BoilerDown]

So much unfounded fearmongering.  The mortality rate is high, 40-80%.  They are bringing the doctors here because they are Americans and deserve the best care and the best chance for life.  But the fearmongering is unfounded because its actually hard to transmit the disease.  Its not infectious before symptoms show.  Its only transmitted by bodily fluids.  Don't drink their blood or have sex with these two doctors, and you'll be fine.  Most of you are hypocrites anyways, if you were infected, you wouldn't give a damn about anyone else, you'd want to have the best medical care available.  You hypocrites have my disrespect.

[FLOOB]

So much unfounded fearmongering.  The mortality rate is high, 40-80%.  They are bringing the doctors here because they are Americans and deserve the best care and the best chance for life.  But the fearmongering is unfounded because its actually hard to transmit the disease.  Its not infectious before symptoms show.  Its only transmitted by bodily fluids.  Don't drink their blood or have sex with these two doctors, and you'll be fine.  Most of you are hypocrites anyways, if you were infected, you wouldn't give a damn about anyone else, you'd want to have the best medical care available.  You hypocrites have my disrespect.

I disagree. I think most of us would not want to bring ebola home. There are sources stating that it is droplet transmissible and contractible through inhalation. I hope they're wrong, but it makes sense if the theory about monkeys getting it from the saliva of fruitbats is true. Which would mean it's not just a bloodborne pathogen like hiv.

[Brooke]

its actually hard to transmit the disease.

Unfortunately, not hard enough for the doctors (who likely know all the appropriate precautions) to avoid getting it.

Its not infectious before symptoms show.  Its only transmitted by bodily fluids.

Yes, any fluid that contains the virus is infectious.  So, during incubation time, blood itself (having virus in it) would be infectious -- but (at least in early stages of incubation) not yet feces, urine, vomit, semen, saliva, etc.  Interestingly, for people who survive, it has been noted that semen contains the virus up to 60 days after onset of infection.

Whether or not to bring them to the US is not my decision -- it's the decision of the people involved.  If it were my decision alone, I would need a lot more information before knowing what is best.

[zack1234]

I heard from the dentist of the guy who cuts the lawn of the accountant for one of the IT guys at the NSC that they're bringing them back to try and weaponize it.   

 

I heard this as well

[icepac]

If the Zaire or ivory coast variants ever mutate to being able to be transmitted by air, we're in a lot of trouble.

Of course, this may take thousands of years.

Ironic that the nasty monkey virus types that have made the cross species jump to humans all showed up in the exact same area where Hilary Koprowski used various monkey kidneys (including chimp kidneys) as a substrate to grow his polio vaccine........which was later used untested on various tribes.

[Randy1]

For those that don't know Emory is a medical school as well as research hospital.  One of the top medical places in the country and Atlanta is home to the CDC.  There is no worries here in GA.

I would think the worse case for us would be for the disease to spread to Latin America or the Caribbean.

[Yankee67]

A little better quote on the book "The Hot Zone", which recounts the true story of the 1989 ebola outbreak at the privately owned Reston Primate Quarantine Unit in suburban Virginia:

"The first chapter of The Hot Zone is one of the most horrifying things I've ever read in my whole life . And then it gets worse." - author Steven King

[FLOOB]

All this stuff about Ebola only being as communicable as HIV is BS, it's spin. If it were true Ebola wouldn't require level 4 biocontainment.

[Rich46yo]

we do know how to stop Ebola."

Yeah and they said nuclear energy was safe too. They once said cigarettes were actually good for you. For years they infected people with the blood supply even tho there was ample evidence how AIDs was transmitted.

I dont believe them. And what can we possibly do for the victims here that couldnt be done "there"? By all means the 1st world needs to support these countries but why bring it here? They knew their chances when they went.

[Yankee67]

It was encouraging to see that at least the male patient was able to walk into Emory under his own power.  A little freaky that the cops closed down the highway for the ambulance, though.

[FLOOB]

Did you notice that the people in contact with him are in positive pressure suits as per cdc guidlines for level 4 pathogen safety.