Ebola death toll jumps to 467

a reply to: TheCounselor

No problem. One thing that bothers me about the map, is realizing the sheer size of landmass affected. And there are some cases HUNDREDS of miles from a Hospital.

IMO it's probably not time to "freak out" .....yet.

a reply to: CloudsTasteMetallic

Not to mention some of the Nomadic tribes in Africa who could play a part in transporting the disease. I'm not sure if the Nomads pass through any of the affected areas in their travels however.

a reply to: CloudsTasteMetallic

That's what I was thinking, too. In between those splotches of outbreak on long, thin lines of what?
Untracked people.

a reply to: intrptr Yes, you nailed it exactly. Nobody in any of those countries should be allowed on a plane, because once a disease makes it onto a plane, it is everywhere

originally posted by: CloudsTasteMetallic

It truly is unprecedented (in recent history anyway, *cough, bubonic plague, cough*) as far as the rapid geographical spread is concerned.

Thats just stupid.

1918 influenza out break for one and a number of other influenza outbreaks in the 20th century.

a reply to: intrptr
What is fueling this epidemic is ignorance, social breakdown and promiscuity.

A large percentage of this population is uneducated and
frankly uneducable. They will not understand hygiene or be inclined to
follow detailed instructions.

Poor waste management, lack of bathing and hand washing, failure to
isolate the sick make a disease that wouldn't make headway in Europe or
America highly dangerous.

Panic will set in and the disease will spread everywhere. When I use the
term promiscuity, I am not referring to sexual promiscuity but social promiscuity.

a reply to: UMayBRite!

I was about to say the same thing but in less favorable terms.

To put it blunt the areas that are hit are still living in the dark ages. The people living in filth and would rather run to the local woo woo witch doctor for treatment than medical professionals treating them with fear and sometimes out right violence.

And as you said the people are uneducated and ignorant.

Marburg ,Ebola twin sister already hit Europe in the 1960's and it was contained back then when we knew nothing about it. Ebola wont make headway in the west, not unless it goes Airborne and it seems that the gene that makes it airborne make its dormant in Humans.

First post ever!: This such a shame, I spent a fair bit of time in Liberia last year and it's a nation trying to claw its way out of a violent past. If it worsens the various "western" companies will call it a no travel zone, probably stopping flights into Monrovia and the mining companies will temporarily pull out leaving a lot of workers in poverty.

a reply to: UMayBRite!

They will not understand hygiene or be inclined to
follow detailed instructions.

Sad, but true.

That map of the multiple outbreak "zones" reflects that. People who have contracted the virus still in incubation are being allowed to wander outside containment. Kind of like embers from a forest fire starting more small fires ahead of the main fire line.

The need to mobilize on this right now is dire. Local health care workers are obviously unable to contain the further spread. Local authorities need to establish roadblocks manned by military personnel with orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to break quarantine.

Civilized countries with mobile labs and response teams need to get there pronto and begin to help tracing down potential cases. I am sure this is going on on some level but not nearly seriously enough, imo.

Before major population centers in Africa, small outbreaks of ebola were contained because as soon as the elders in a village detected an outbreak they felled trees across all the towns exits and manned them, turning away all travelers with the message to spread the word. Soon the whole local region would fell trees around their villages as well.

No one comes or goes from that point onwards. All infected people go into a hut to live or die. Once the spread was stopped and the virus had run its course, the survivors were let out of the hut and the hut burned to destroy the well of virus.

Thats why to this date Ebola has not spread to the wider world. Nowadays the situation there is totally changed.

The worst fear on the part of local authorities there is a panic produced by knowledge of the increasing number of cases and flood of refugees as from a war zone (which it is) with maybe thousands of infected people fleeing ahead of containment to "get away".

The wider world better get serious about this before it gets out of hand.

Ebola Zaire is the worst of the Ebola family.

The story I paraphrased about villages reacting to Ebola can be found in a book about viruses called the Hot Zone. Better read it people. The most important thing to understanding the nature of viruses and their spread is education. That book is pertinent. So are updates from the CDC. Stay informed about this one.

Here is what the Ebola virus looks like:



Full Resoultion

It has several specialized proteins in its outer membrane that helps it infect human cells as well as reducing the immune response.

The fact that there are pockets of outbreaks is going to make it harder to control. Maybe they should close or at the very least control those ports in infected areas.

Doctors without Borders have brave men and women there, helping out. They are bringing some modern medicine to those areas, but seriously what can they do besides enforcing a quarantine and slowing the spread of the virus? They seem worried too, saying the outbreak is "out of control".

Doctors Without Borders

a reply to: lostbook

There was a special report on Sky new UK about the outbreak today-It was bloody harrowing to watch;especially one part where a woman who was a nurse had become infected and was just starting to feel ill.The look in her eye was horrible to see-she being a nurse,knew exactlly what was going to happen to her in the next days.
Just horrible to see.

I must also say the journalist,Alex Crawford,is one very brave lady to have got dressed in all the protective gear,and actually visited the high risk areas of the makeshift hospital-Thats the same protective gear the nurse was wearing,and it didn't protect her sadly.

news.sky.com...

A terrible situation,made worse by the suspicions of locals-they think the doctors will kill their sick family members,so they hide them away,and the disease spreads further among family memebers who care for their sick relatives.

This is a very scary issue, since i've lived in Africa i agree totaly with UMayBRite! and crazyewok, plus the funeral rituals in those places are very unsafe, depending on wich tribe or ethnicity, but most of the rituals keep the dead family member in their own house, and you cannot change that, African people goe to church, but very supersticious, believe more in witchcraft, then in one God or Doctor. For me as a European, the transmition issue is very urgent, since everyday in south Europe arrives boats filled with African people that try to ilegal enter Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. They come from every part of Africa, and that is very scary, since Italy and Spain already have huge problems with controling ilegal imigration. But like Zaphod58 once told me, Ebola it's very fast, could never be used like a weapon because it kills before the spread, well not anymore, it as arrived in a urban area, it's a matter of time until it gets here. As for mesures to contain it, i'm scared just to think about it, we are talking about countries that live in kinds of dictatorships, ruled also by ocidental companys, soooo let´s just think a little bit, taking the example of Guernica (Spain) that when they rebeled against the dictator, the town got bombed by their own president.... To contain damages, so imagine what can happen in Africa and we will never know about it...

is this the way TPTB or what ever you want to call them are doing a human cull of sorts
sorry reply to OP

originally posted by: maryhinge
is this the way TPTB or what ever you want to call them are doing a human cull of sorts
sorry reply to OP

467 dead out of the hundreds of millions in Africa a pretty crappy cull

a reply to: crazyewok

I'm going to hedge my bets. It shouldn't make headway in the west. If it were ever to hit in enough numbers that it could overwhelm our medical facilities ... then we'd be plunged into a third world situation quite quickly in isolated areas.

And don't think we couldn't get a festering outbreak going in the Western world. What if it hit in the no-go zones of France? What if it go going in an illegal migrant community in the States? There are places in every country, no matter how modern where hygiene deteriorates and people are suspicious of the authorities enough that something like this could get a foothold.

a reply to: ketsuko

Ok nothing is impossible.

But 467 after all these months in Africa with little to no medical facilities? It very very very unlikely it would get far in the west.

a reply to: crazyewok

You're probably right, but fear, ignorance and panic do funny things.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

I don't know if 'brave' is an appropriate word for the journalist - ESPECIALLY since he/she went to a super high hit area......wearing the same gear that failed on the nurse.

If Alex is back in first world society, Alex is foolish, not brave. that move could have doomed us all.

it's like going to work with flu or h1n1. Brave to keep going to work? No. Selfish.

I get we need to know what's going on, but I'm SURE none of us are dying to know. That was foolish to go there. foolish.

originally posted by: maryhinge
is this the way TPTB or what ever you want to call them are doing a human cull of sorts
sorry reply to OP

I'll have to agree with Crazy Ewok; this is not a cull. I am more concerned with an outbreak reaching Europe more than the states because of proximity. While Ebola could be used as a weapon for global population reduction, I don't think that's the case now. My major concern is if WHO can contain it before it mutates. ......Now that is what's SCARY!

a reply to: sarra1833

No, you have to understand. Ewok is the one most likely to be right here. The odds of Ebola making a serious break out in any Western country are extremely low. They might even be less than 5%. The disease doesn't spread easily and wouldn't spread easily in our society. It requires specialized conditions that just aren't all that common in Western society, including extremely unsanitary conditions, a real fear of going to the hospital (or the authorities), and lots of contact with infected body fluids when they're fresh.

The only way that happens and creates a major problem in Western society is if you get a big enough break out that it winds up overwhelming society and breaking it down. The odds of that are extremely unlikely on any kind of large scale although you might find it happening in isolated pockets where people are either cut off isolated or cut themselves off. Even then, once large society moves in, sanitation and modern medical practice would almost certainly contain any outbreaks very quickly.

For the rest, you might get a handful of cases at worst before the disease is contained ... unless it mutates into something much more contagious. That is the real fear. For every case, there is a chance it could mutate into something more readily contagious and threatening, and the longer this plague goes on ... the more chances it has for this to happen. But even that still isn't very likely.

I suppose another fear is that if Ebola were to find its way to Europe or the US that it might create a reservoir and become a native bug that periodically breaks out. Since we don't know much about it, it might be possible, but I think wherever it hides that it's a tropical bug in a tropical reservoir. However, we do have non-native diseases coming to our shores in mosquitoes so who knows?