Ebola coming to a town near you.

[CAP1]

from the WHO page......

Transmission

It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

 now, note that they say "with surfaces". then think about what that guy in texas touched. like everything he could to keep balance getting on/off that aircraft. and things he may have touched in the airport. there is a suspected case in dc.

someone upthread mentioned that the cdc says they can't eliminate threat, but only minimize it. we need either stop air travel to/from there till this is contained, or stop air travel from there till this is contained.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

from the WHO page......

Transmission

It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

 now, note that they say "with surfaces". then think about what that guy in texas touched. like everything he could to keep balance getting on/off that aircraft. and things he may have touched in the airport. there is a suspected case in dc.

someone upthread mentioned that the cdc says they can't eliminate threat, but only minimize it. we need either stop air travel to/from there till this is contained, or stop air travel from there till this is contained.

Not to mention that the worker who treated him and was wearing a full protection suit + following protocol is now sick. Nobody knows how he contracted the disease.

[Randy1]

Having worked in radiation contaminated environments, I can tell you it is easy to make a mistake coming out if you don't suit up often enough and don't take the procedures dead seriously.   Radiation of course can be detected and removed from the skin.

The next concern is did this person spread the contamination in the work area immediately after the initial contamination.  That could involve even more people.  Not sure of the life span of Ebola on something.

Scary time in that Texas hospital.

[guncrasher]

Having worked in radiation contaminated environments, I can tell you it is easy to make a mistake coming out if you don't suit up often enough and don't take the procedures dead seriously.   Radiation of course can be detected and removed from the skin.

The next concern is did this person spread the contamination in the work area immediately after the initial contamination.  That could involve even more people.  Not sure of the life span of Ebola on something.

Scary time in that Texas hospital.

in semen up to 90 days after a man shows no signs of disease.  cant find anywhere how long it actually lives in surfaces.  HIV think only lives for a couple of hours on surfaces.

scary.

before I started looking I was thinking about the scene in resident evil when michelle rodriguez says her funny line as she's almost dying, "when this is over I think I am gonna get laid".  and when you start with the she's a girl, I'll tell you in all the movies she's got some big ones.



semp

[guncrasher]

another food for thought:

The symptoms of EVD are similar to those of Marburg virus disease.[61] It can also easily be confused with many other diseases common in Equatorial Africa such as other viral hemorrhagic fevers, falciparum malaria, typhoid fever, shigellosis, rickettsial diseases such as typhus, cholera, gram-negative septicemia, borreliosis such as relapsing fever or EHEC enteritis. Other infectious diseases that should be included in the differential diagnosis include the following: leptospirosis, scrub typhus, plague, Q fever, candidiasis, histoplasmosis, trypanosomiasis, visceral leishmaniasis, hemorrhagic smallpox, measles, and fulminant viral hepatitis.[62] Non-infectious diseases that can be confused with EVD are acute promyelocytic leukemia, hemolytic uremic syndrome, snake envenomation, clotting factor deficiencies/platelet disorders, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, , and even warfarin poisoning.

doctors arent exactly right 100% of the time.  and to be honest they only have 15 to 20 minutes to see each patient.


semp

[RotBaron]

Just fyi, viruses aren't alive. It's better to describe them as machines, they either have the ability to become mechanized (reproduce) or they have been de-mechanized. UV rays, surfactants (soap) and friction can de-mechanize them. They don't "live" as much as they get transported and when they end up on a cell that has a receptor site (i.e. lock & key) they begin to reproduce.

I won't bore you technical jargon and I'm not a microbiologist; the above is the best layman's way I was taught.

[NatCigg]

Viruses depend on the host cells that they infect to reproduce. When found outside of host cells, viruses exist as a protein coat or capsid, sometimes enclosed within a membrane. The capsid encloses either DNA or RNA which codes for the virus elements. While in this form outside the cell, the virus is metabollically inert; examples of such forms are pictured below.

introduction to viruses.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/virus.html



My take is that a virus enters a dormant state when outside of a cell.  This "protein coat" could maintain an active structure forever, so long as no other factor caused it to lose its structure.

[XxDaSTaRxx]

I can't understand why we're all freaking out about this

[NatCigg]

viruses are the scariest things on earth. just look at the Bones!

[Brooke]

I can't understand why we're all freaking out about this

It's because deadly viral epidemics always have some potential to get out of hand and kill 10's of millions of people.

There are several recent such viral infections that world health agencies are or have been concerned about:

Influenza.  This is a big one because there can be variants of it that are deadly and highly infectious, such as the 1918 flu that killed 50 million people.  In recent times, some that have resulted in higher fatality rates are H5N1 Bird Flu and H1N1 Swine Flu, but nothing like the 1918 flu.

Other higher-mortality respiratory viruses (SARS, MERS, for example).  They haven't caused widespread loss of life yet in the world.

Viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as Ebola).  These haven't caused large loss of life in the world yet, either, mainly because they aren't as communicable as something like flu.  This is in part because the virus, when outside the body, doesn't remain viable as long as the flu virus does.  However, there are variants of Ebola that are more highly infectious in that way -- but fortunately for humans, those are variants that don't seem readily to infect humans.  The fear is the that ones that do readily infect humans will mutate and become much more highly transmissable.  If that happened, it would be very, very bad news for the world.  This is not outside the realm of possibility.  The more people who get infected with current strains of Ebola, and the longer the current epidemic lasts, the greater and greater the risk of such a horrible event.

[danny76]

I can't understand why we're all freaking out about this

possibly the single most gormless statement I have read in while.

[XxDaSTaRxx]

possibly the single most gormless statement I have read in while.

Who the hell cares about Ebola?

Honestly, when a loved one of yours gets infected then you can bring it here, Until then, stop pissing your pants about it.

What are YOU going to do about Ebola? You can't do anything.

[Arlo]

Who the hell cares about Ebola?

Honestly, when a loved one of yours gets infected then you can bring it here, Until then, stop pissing your pants about it.

What are YOU going to do about Ebola? You can't do anything.

Whiskey2 for topic monitor.

[FLOOB]

Who the hell cares about Ebola?

Honestly, when a loved one of yours gets infected then you can bring it here, Until then, stop pissing your pants about it.

What are YOU going to do about Ebola? You can't do anything.

Obviously you cared enough about ebola to participate in a thread about it. And I don't see any indications of anyone freaking out about it in this thread. Which makes the "why are you panicking?" posts seem kind of strange.

[FLOOB]

from the WHO page......

Transmission

It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

 now, note that they say "with surfaces". then think about what that guy in texas touched. like everything he could to keep balance getting on/off that aircraft. and things he may have touched in the airport. there is a suspected case in dc.

someone upthread mentioned that the cdc says they can't eliminate threat, but only minimize it. we need either stop air travel to/from there till this is contained, or stop air travel from there till this is contained.

I read that the nurse that got it in spain touched an infected man's face with her gloved hand, and then touched her face with the same gloved hand. Now does that sound like a disease that's "very difficult to catch" as the american media likes to say?