Ebola

[LovelyLadyLux]

Surging in west Africa and extremely deadly with a death toll at 467. How to contain it? The countries are so poor and impoverished with no infrastructure in place to deal with it. Not even sure the '467' is accurate as I doubt the reporting is true.

Does WHO have the ability to send in medical swat teams to help contain this? And if this spreads how long until it moves out of west Africa to other areas?

[Horus]

Saying as its one of the most virulent of viruses they had better make an effort a bit smartish. The only good thing, if you can say good, is that people die very quickly and that usually contains it, but it would only take one infected person to get on a plane and it could spread like wildfire.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I'm sure the stats are not correct in that I'm sure many more have died and not even known what they died from, never made it to hospital and their death was not recorded as being in conjunction with ebola.

I don't know what the incubation period is but am sure that somebody could become infected, not even know it and travel. One plane ride infects 200 to 300 or so people and from there it just spreads out incrementally. One landing of an infected person in an international airport and the world is "at risk."

From what I've been seeing there are very very few doctors who have any knowledge of ebola and even those that do and are there 'on site' do not necessarily have the medical equipment to even guarantee they won't catch the disease from an infected patient.

Am definitely hoping something can be put in place super fast to start containing this as it could make SARS or the Avion Flu or Mad Cow look like a walk in the park.

If I had to commit resources to a cause I'd be on this one and would be ordering up the clothing needed and diagnostic equipment asap.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Seems the two infected with ebola have vastly improved after they were injected with an experimental drug designed to combat ebola. Was hearing today that both doctor and nurse after being given an injection of the experimental drug started to improve within 20 minutes.

Sure there are lots of cautions that this might be temporary, not sufficient etc etc but to me it was VERY appropriate to try out the drug on them. They were going to die otherwise and the knowledge gained from giving this drug is invaluable as I believe to date it had only been tried on chimps.

I often wish that other experimental meds could be, at least, TRIED on people suffering deadly diseases who want to TRY a possible life saving measure. The years and years of testing to make sure a drug is OK is prolonged and onerous.

I know that if I was at end stage in life and knew that an experimental drug was available and knowing that I could die asap on being injected it I would still want to try and I know that I'd give full permissions. The upside is that I could live longer, the upside is that side effects for other people would be known. The downside is I'd die sooner but if that was inevitable why not AND the medical community would get a chance to know how the drug was interacting on humans.

A Canadian Medical University has some role in the new ebola medications too. Never knew we were studying it.

[Grandad]

Saying as its one of the most virulent of viruses they had better make an effort a bit smartish. The only good thing, if you can say good, is that people die very quickly and that usually contains it, but it would only take one infected person to get on a plane and it could spread like wildfire.

Horus, a few days ago I heard one of the Government medical Advisors say that Ebola can only be transmitted in human fluids and is not a danger in air travel. I thought what a ridiculous statement. One infected person SNEEZING in an aircraft MUST put all passengers at risk? Or was he just trying to persuade air travellers not to panic? And cause revenue losses to the airlines???

[Jayway]

Heard on Portuguese news that another suspected case has been found in USA, a recent traveller from Africa - -

[LovelyLadyLux]

Just before I went out this morning I heard on TV News that a man walked into Mt Sinai hospital with a very high fever, diarrhea and had recently returned from west Africa. He has been put into isolation but I've heard no more.

What they're saying on the News here is that it takes bodily fluids to carry this virus. Course a wet sneeze would count IMO if the sneeze got onto you. However if a person sneezes 20 feet away the virus won't carry on the air and blow over to where you are.

It has been all over the news about how it is safe to bring the 2 medical people back to the USA. Apparently this experimental drug is artificial and somehow binds to the virus killing it. This experimental virus is very limited so it was stated that they aren't going to be able to get it to Africa to help anybody there.

I've been wondering how many people are leaving the area and been wondering at the general level of education and understanding of the disease. My worry is that infected people could be travelling and moving spreading the infection further.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Seems the nurse infected with ebola has passed. Very sad she was giving so much to save people and was taken for her efforts.....RIP

Saw some numbers today re: outbreaks and seems ebola is starting to spread as it is now in Nigeria. I kinda question the stats because I'm sure they're 'official' and I wonder how many people have passed with ebola yet it wasn't known that that is what they have.

World Health Organizations WHO is holding an emergency summit today to get some plans or contingencies or whatever in place to combat this disease. I definitely hope there are plans to contain it. I'm also a bit worried that given travel ebola could be popping up all over the place around the world (heard there are suspicions there is a man in Saudi Arabia who might have ebola AND he was recently in west Africa)

This is one story I wish would fade from the News (with good outcomes)

[LovelyLadyLux]

Seems the doctor and nurse who contracted ebola and were brought back to the USA have recovered well and have now been released from hospital.

On another note seems the disease is still on the rise with 2 new cases being diagnosed in Nigeria now. There is concern that families are hiding their loved ones and are not bringing them for medical attention therefore the stats are not reflecting true numbers.

Sad that people are not sufficiently educated in ebola (and other serious diseases) so as to bring affected relatives in at the first sign of getting ill for treatment which aids in stopping the spread of the disease. I've long thought that many families tend to hide their sick and/or fail to recognize the signs of ebola with many passing with undiagnosed disease(s).

Definitely hope it can be contained.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Centre of Disease Control has just announced the first diagnosed case of ebola in the USA. It is in Texas and the patient is in isolation at Dallas Hospital.

The doctor who is speaking is stating he is VERY confident that this case is isolated and there will not be an outbreak. He did say the test to diagnose ebola is very easy and specific requiring a blood draw. Various doctors are talking and all are stressing that this disease won't spread indicating ebola is NOT an air borne disease and is not transmitted via the air we breathe.

It is also good to know that Dallas/FortWorth has an international airport there.

[Grandad]

But it would only take one infected person to get on a plane and it could spread like wildfire.

I well remembered your earlier words Horus......

[Horus]

Sadly Grandad I could see this unfolding way back, the various powers that be seemed to be taking too much of a back seat and doing very little to contain it. We are now in a situation of fire fighting with little outbreaks popping up here an there and soon if we are not careful there will be an endemic (not epidemic) form of Ebola that will continually keep cropping up because we allowed it out into the general world population and failed to contain it locally.

[LovelyLadyLux]

The discussion about this in Canada is to start a screening of people re: where they are coming from. Ideally that would be great BUT we're going to screen each and every person coming off a plane and then chart where each of these people came from, who sat close to who, who sneezed on who then where they're all going and on and on..........can't do it.

Again I realize that we all have rights and freedoms etc but are we at a point in our history where we need to start curtailing these to ensure our own safety?

We're all equal but some of us are more equal that others particularly the aggressors. Victims see to always be playing catch up to get the same benefits as those who perpetrate...........

[LovelyLadyLux]

I guess since the USA got their first ebola patient Canada has been screening and we have managed to screen a person coming from west African who had fever. This person has been isolated for the protection of ALL pending tests show exactly what this person has.

Personally I think for the interim (and this might not be practical) all flights coming into Canada from W. Africa be suspended. Isn't our gov't supposed to be actually protecting us? Make the decision and stop people coming in (other than citizens if they go through a medical process before arriving) until this outbreak of ebola is under control.

At this rate I can see it spreading throughout the world and I can't imagine for a second that many of the hospitals world wide are prepared to cope with mega patients that need to be in isolation and have intensive nursing.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Even though President Obama was making speeches about ebola not being an issue in the USA a man did arrive and is now in critical condition from ebola. It has been figured out that there are 3 family members, 7 neighbours and 38 others who came in contact with him and there has been a search on for a homeless man (just found him) who was one of the neighbours who had contact.

Can't understand at all WHY they don't stop flights coming in from west Africa. IF ebola gets a toe hold it will grow exponentially and our health care systems here are not set up to deal with it.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Watching an interesting NOVA show on TV tonight on ebola. Theory is it started in Dec 2013 when a child died in Guinea with the disease. The remainder of the child's family passed and nurses who treated them and thus the train of infection started and moved to different villages and very quickly went out of control.

Speculation is that African fruit bats carry ebola.

Ebola is particularly virulent and can cause patients to bleed internally with vital organ failure.

Not particularly optimistic show in that it seems a cure is not on the horizon.

[Grandad]

It would appear that only the US and UK are making any effort to try to control the spread of ebola. But how do you combat something so virilant?

In the countries infected there should perhaps be a total shut down of movements by road and air and a concerted effort to educate the people on what MUST be done for a period of maybe several months to contain any further spread and hopefully let the virus die out.

All the time people are moving around and not really understanding what must be done, I fear it will spread even more widely.

[Horus]

Like many of these diseases that skip species, it is usually a result of eating 'bush meat' and that can be anything from bats to monkeys. The biggest problem is that the people themselves are usually poorly educated and many do not believe or cannot comprehend what these diseases actually are, so ignore the warnings. I warned some time back that this was not being properly controlled and I am afraid it is true, the West seems very slow to react in a cohesive manner until it is too late, the ISIS thing is another example.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Different times when I've been in Trinidad I've been struck with how backwards the thinking of some people are. There is a considerable percentage of the population who are uneducated and uninformed and honestly the suspicions and beliefs are phenomenal. And, I'd hazard, that once an adult reaches a certain age without education there seems to set in a certain stubbornness to learn. They're happy with all the voodoos, hexes, witchcraft theories they use to make sense of their world and 'facts' are not about to be welcomed, understood etc.

One very sad example was 'us' driving home from a day at the beach. My friends son (14yrs old) started talking about dinosaurs and from the drivers seat came a very sharp command to stop talking such foolishness as no way could there be such things and dated etc. I wasn't thinking so joined into the fray about Carbon dating and was quite rebuffed that I didn't need to talk such nonsense. The son was embarrassed by Dad's ignorance of not knowing and blatantly refusing to know - yet - his dad holds a very responsible local gov't position and runs a fairly large Company employing 40+ people. What can't be seen, touched, tasted just doesn't exist and I think it is the same in many of these African villages.

What bothered me a bit about the NOVA special I watched last night was they showed the bodies being buried!!! I don't have a hesitation that some of the bodies were probably dug up so they could then be re-buried wherever the families wanted them to be re-buried and in doing this the bodies were touched. Was quite shocked that the bodies were not cremated which would put an end to any possible spread instead it showed workers burying the bodies.

I think the entire outbreak has been mismanaged, decisions are NOT being made fast enough. To me, it seems, we're all afraid of being labelled racists, prejudiced or something which is making difficult decisions impossible. We're all going to die by our own hands due to mismanagement and slowness of decisions.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Lots of discussion here going on re: this deadly virus and overwhelmingly people here seem to think the CDC isn't telling them the truth and is trying to cover up something because the Feds won't stop Air Traffic from West Africa from landing here. There doesn't seem to be any reasons being given as to why the US can't stop travelers coming from countries with the ebola outbreak from coming here. It was suggested strongly that those who want flights to stop simply want this cause (guess what?!?!) They're RACIST!

Pretty hard to believe that but 'tis true.........