Ebola Patient in Atlanta Hospital

a reply to: kruphix

This seems to suggest there is a difference beyond just population.

The Ebola virus strain responsible for Guinea's outbreak—now at 197 suspected or confirmed cases—is a new strain that has been sickening and killing people at least as far back as December, researchers reported yesterday.

Source

Phylogenetic analysis of the full-length sequences established a separate clade for the Guinean EBOV strain in sister relationship with other known EBOV strains. This suggests that the EBOV strain from Guinea has evolved in parallel with the strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon from a recent ancestor and has not been introduced from the latter countries into Guinea.

Source

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the information provided at these two sources.

originally posted by: kruphix

originally posted by: DirtyD
a reply to: kruphix

This outbreak is unprecedented, so citing WEBMD as the end-all be-all of Ebola information is quite naive. Never before has this disease killed so many, and spread so fast. It is also the first time it has hit a major urban area (Lagos). There are a lot of firsts here, and I think the west is showing a lot of hubris with the laze-faire attitude of "it can't happen here".

I linked WHO and WebMD...do you have a better source of information?

There is one difference in this outbreak and that is population...that is all. The difference isn't the super mutated airborn strain that some are trying to suggest.

But I'd love to see your sources that give better information on Ebola.

While I consider WebMD a credible source. Nothing is 100% full proof. Especially at this stage.

WebMD Worries That Possible Misinformation On Their Website Will Result In Legal Action

link

Has anyone thought that the two doctors and the nurse, (is that all that have come to America, MSM is keeping it SO SCREWD up I don't know 3,4,5.... that maybe they don't even have ebola, They just creeped out and came home? Went in hospitals because they are scared $hitless. Maybe the reason we are not getting good info.

The above freaked out and headed home. I know I have been flipping out from first of hearing about the large outbreak in Africa. I am going to calm down till I see something new. We hear so many bad things from Africa, from who??? MSM

I believe the top ebola doctor died weeks ago in Africa. The one's that came home creeped out. This guy in the link below...Please let it work.

www.dailymail.co.uk... ose-surveillance.html" target="_blank" class="postlink">HTTP/www.dailymail.co.uk... eople-placed-close-surveillance.html

a reply to: kruphix

There is one difference in this outbreak and that is population...that is all.

Yes, and that's what makes this outbreak so much more different than anything ever experienced.

Health Expert: 'No Strategic Plan' For Controlling Ebola Outbreak

The Ebola outbreak concentrated in West Africa is “out of control,” and the international community has no organized plan to address it, a global health expert said Tuesday.

“We’re now in a perfect storm,” Laurie Garrett, senior global health fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, said Tuesday on a CFR conference call. “There is no strategic plan for how this epidemic will be brought under control.”

“People believe that there’s a giant World Health Organization office in Geneva stocked full of specialized equipment and talented health care workers,” she said. “Not only do we not have any such thing –- the WHO is essentially bankrupt.”

Also, while the virus isn't airborne, it can transmit through the air without physical contact.

From a 2012 BBC Article:

Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola

Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.

In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the infection gets into humans through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs and other bodily fluids from a number of species including chimpanzees, gorillas and forest antelope.

The fruit bat has long been considered the natural reservoir of the infection. But a growing body of experimental evidence suggests that pigs, both wild and domestic, could be a hidden source of Ebola Zaire - the most deadly form of the virus.

Now, researchers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the country's Public Health Agency have shown that pigs infected with this form of Ebola can pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact between the species.

In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier. After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised.

One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.

"What we suspect is happening is large droplets - they can stay in the air, but not long, they don't go far," he explained.

"But they can be absorbed in the airway and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way."

Based on that research, if a person sickened with Ebola got onto a packed New York subway train, they could potentially infect a whole lot of people.

How many patients do you think New York City hospitals could keep in strict isolation to prevent further infection. In the event of an outbreak here in the states, I think we are fooling ourselves into thinking that hospitals wouldn't be quickly overrun.

Sorry if some of these links have already been posted, this is a long thread.

a reply to: judydawg

There are only two, and they were both tested and confirmed cases. They almost died of it.

a reply to: 00nunya00

I was almost sure 2 in Atlana and 1 in New York. buy I can be wrong.

a reply to: judydawg

Ah, well then, you're correct that there are *multiple* "possible" cases in other parts of the country including NYC, but only two confirmed cases----the doc and nurse that were brought home. The others just came home normally and then got sick.

Aside from the two brought to Atlanta, in the U.S., I believe they've tested two other people...one in New York and one in Ohio. With the baby maybe now three. That we know of.

Around the world, they've tested at least one (I believe it may be two) people in Hong Kong and in the Phillipines, and a woman who died in the UK after getting off a flight. I probably missed some.

Then there's this...NYPost but...

6 people tested for Ebola in US: report

“There have been about a half a dozen patients who have had their blood tested because of concern, those particular patients their stories were not made public,” said CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “I’m not sure if that’s because of heightened concern by the hospital or what that means exactly.”

So the numbers may be going up. At least they're testing. I guess.

The almighty WHO has no plan for containing outbreak, and is essentially "bankrupt"

"We’re now in a perfect storm,” Laurie Garrett, senior global health fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, said Tuesday on a CFR conference call. “There is no strategic plan for how this epidemic will be brought under control.”

“People believe that there’s a giant World Health Organization office in Geneva stocked full of specialized equipment and talented health care workers,” she said. “Not only do we not have any such thing –- the WHO is essentially bankrupt.”

Garrett said it is telling that the largest response group in West Africa -- Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which has more than 550 staff members on the ground -- is a volunteer group. Furthermore, Garrett said, the group's tired workers have "issued plea after plea in recent days" for someone else to take over. "

a reply to: FraggleRock

your first source is from April when they were doing initial test to see what strain it is...it seems like since then they have pinpointed the strain to be the Zaire strain.

Although, one part in that article already explains why this outbreak is so widespread.

Evidence of single introduction

The group's look back at the transmission chains found that the first suspected case was a 2-year-old girl from Gueckedou prefecture who died in early December. They also found that an infected health worker from the same part of Guinea appears to have spread the virus to Macenta, Nzerekore, and Kissidougou in February. As the outbreak grew, 13 of the confirmed cases could be linked to four clusters.

They also say that they really had no idea it was Ebola for awhile, which allowed for it to spread. But I think the biggest issue was that the health worker probably spread it to other health workers and/or other patients he was treating.

I honestly think that this is the only difference. Other outbreaks have been in small rural villages where once outside health workers are going in, they already know what they are dealing with.

a reply to: DirtyD

Also, while the virus isn't airborne, it can transmit through the air without physical contact.

From pigs to primates...not from human to human. I dug a little more into the experiment and found that in pigs, Ebola is primarily a respiratory infection, not a blood/gastro infection. This would explain why pigs can pass it through the air I would guess...but there is absolutely no evidence that humans can pass it to other humans via airborn transmission.

www.nature.com...

While primates develop systemic infection associated with immune dysregulation resulting in severe hemorrhagic fever, the EBOV infection in swine affects mainly respiratory tract, implicating a potential for airborne transmission of ZEBOV2

Based on that research, if a person sickened with Ebola got onto a packed New York subway train, they could potentially infect a whole lot of people.

No, that is not at all what that research showed. It showed that Ebola can be transferred airborn between pigs and primates...not between two humans.

You are taking one fact and trying to extrapolate that fact to something entirely different...it doesn't work that way.

So no, there are no cases that show that Ebola, this current outbreak or any others, have a human to human airborn transmission route.

originally posted by: kruphix
a reply to: FraggleRock

They also say that they really had no idea it was Ebola for awhile, which allowed for it to spread. But I think the biggest issue was that the health worker probably spread it to other health workers and/or other patients he was treating.

At first, I was like "how the hell did they not suspect Ebola, especially in this region where they're always on watch for it?" But then this part jumped out:

Clinical investigation found that the most common symptoms among confirmed case-patients were fever, severe diarrhea, and vomiting, but hemorrhage was less common.

Which is both great, because it's probably one of the big reasons this outbreak is less deadly than other outbreaks of the Zaire strain, but also a little unnerving, because as we've discussed on this thread many times, people think "it's going to be obvious if someone has Ebola and not just the flu, because they'll be bleeding." And it seems that's exactly what they were thinking in Africa when this broke out. Flu season in the US this year is gonna be a nightmare of overcrowded hospitals and doctor's offices, if this doesn't sputter out soon. Yikes. :/

a reply to: FraggleRock

You are on the right track. According to WHO it's a new strain.

3 APRIL 2014 - WHO is supporting the national authorities in the response to an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD; formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever). The outbreak is now confirmed to be caused by a strain of ebolavirus with very close homology (98%) to the Zaire ebolavirus. This is the first time the disease has been detected in West Africa. www.who.int...

In virus percentages, 2% can make a world of difference.

Study: Growing Guinea outbreak caused by new Ebola strain

The results of full genetic sequencing suggest that the outbreak in Guinea isn't related to others that have occurred elsewhere in Africa, according to an international team that published its findings online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The fact that it was identified back in April means nothing more than...it was identified back in April.

a reply to: 00nunya00

Flu season in the US this year is gonna be a nightmare of overcrowded hospitals and doctor's offices, if this doesn't sputter out soon. Yikes.

Except that influenza does not usually produce vomiting and diarrhea and those two symptoms are very common with this outbreak.

There is so much attention on this now, I doubt it will still be very active by the time November comes around.

a reply to: kruphix

It's never been proven, but it is strongly suspected by some experts:

In the laboratory, infection through small-particle aerosols has been demonstrated in primates, and airborne spread among humans is strongly suspected, although it has not yet been conclusively demonstrated

originally posted by: kruphix
a reply to: 00nunya00

Flu season in the US this year is gonna be a nightmare of overcrowded hospitals and doctor's offices, if this doesn't sputter out soon. Yikes.

Except that influenza does not usually produce vomiting and diarrhea and those two symptoms are very common with this outbreak.

There is so much attention on this now, I doubt it will still be very active by the time November comes around.

We discussed this at length earlier in the thread as well. The clinical use of the term "flu" has a much more narrow definition than the layman's use of it. When most people get a fever accompanied by diarrhea and/or vomiting, they call it the "flu" even though it's actually a different virus. "Flu season" usually has a host of other viruses going around as well that DO cause the GI symptoms. And hence, my worry that the hundreds of thousands of people who get the layman's "flu" this year will suspect Ebola and run to the doc to make sure.

Okay, I've gotten caught up on the thread, and I'm going to start by being off-topic for only a brief second: I've noticed the trollz have no avatars. Everyone who's been contributing solid INFORMATION has one. I have no idea what that means, but can only guess.

On topic:

Virii want to survive. That is their purpose in the evolutionary aspect of their existence. Just like we do. We have many mechanisms built into our complex organism that we call our bodies, such as fear, emotions in general, and one heck of an immune system. Nature, over the course of history, has given us hurdles to overcome, and call it the Spanish Flu, The Common Cold, or Ebola, but the point is when we conquer one bug, after a loss of many lives, another takes it's place. Virii compete for survival, for their very existence, and MUST mutate to do so. The "variations" of Ebola are named after the geographic locations where they originated from, and is a direct example of said mutations.

Virii base their survival upon their environment, and mutate according to that. They dwell within their host, and they don't follow rules. They are only trying to survive. They jump species because they can. Most virii need colonies of thousands to affect a host, but this Ebola? This one is deadly. It only takes one to get a foothold, and start reproducing, one microscopic instance of itself. It hides itself for up to 21 days, invisible to detection, and only when it's host shows signs of distress does it reveal itself, but by then that single virus has multipled beyond control, and the host's immune system is past coping on it's own. Without assistance, the host would die, but the virus doesn't care, because the fluids that contains millions of single Ebola is now a perfect method of transferring itself to the next host. And the next, and the next. Ebola doesn't care about your family, your friends, or anything except it's own survival. It will break all rules to that end.

Will the containment at Emory hold fast? I believe so. I'm disgusted that our leaders even allowed it on American soil, but that's a trivial concern. What you people aren't realizing is that as people are fleeing infected zones, they are traveling to other areas as carriers. There has been no containment on a worldwide level, and there won't be now, because the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and you can be damn sure that during this worldwide transmission, Ebola will mutate into several NEW strains. In Africa, it had a set environ to live in, and burnt itself out foolishly. It laid dormant, and mutated, and made itself into different variants so it could live again. Given a new environment, and millions, if not bilions of new hosts to survive in, this virus is gonna mutate several more times to adapt to it's surroundings. The current Zmapp? Well, I can see that working on the current strain, but nobody, and almost nobody doesn't realize the adaptive ability of such a deadly virus given a whole new playground to run around in. Virii love to travel.

Doom porn? At it's finest.

It's not going to be an outbreak at Emory, IMHO. It's going to be a case here and there all over the globe, and poor protocols in place that allow the mutations to spread. It doesn't even have to go airborne at this stage. There are enough ground zero infectants that are roaming the globe that have already infected others, and we haven't even got to the fallout from that yet.

I so hope I am very wrong.

On a happy note, the information being collected in this thread is simply amazing. In typical ATS style, we've covered all the news and information and keep it updated as time progresses. There's nothing better than to stay informed. Kudos to all my fellow members for reporting details, no matter how insignificant, and allowing the whole community to stay current with all the information in what is definitely a major concern for the whole of human existance. Thank you, everyone, for keeping it real.

a reply to: 00nunya00

Yes, WHO wears a rusty brittle armor, not the invincible steel so many think. Today I watched a panel of specialist on ebola, including a woman from the developer of the *secret serum* given to Dr. Brantley and his assistant Nancy. She said it would take 2 more weeks to even make more of it they are NOT set up for large production. Plus it hasn't been approved for human testing yet.

What was heart breaking, she said they have been contacted by just about every Country in the world that has air traffic with Africa, trying to get some for their medical facilities.

Those who think the WHO can do anything, are sadly mistaken. To sit back and think they have the resources to get the outbreak under control, is being too complacent about leaving common sense knowledge of personal safety, to others.

Des

Druid42

In a statement from Christian missionary group SIM USA released Tuesday afternoon, organization president Bruce Johnson said Writebol is settling in at the medical facility. Her sons, Jeremy and Brian, will be able to visit her. Her husband, David, still remains in Liberia, but will join his wife in Atlanta as soon as he can.

Johnson spoke with David Writebol over the phone earlier Tuesday.

“Nancy is still very, very weak, but shows continued, but slow improvement,” said Johnson. “She is showing signs of progress and moving in the right direction

Glad she's improving too. Wonder why her husband is still there though.

a reply to: Druid42

Druid Dearest...

Thank you for gathering all the loose strands, of so many thoughts, and weaving them together in one post that explains it all, in terms that all can understand. You are so good at that. Bless you...

Des