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You have the wherewithal to take care of your own. It's absolutely harsh, yes, but if they tried to take care of everyone, they very quickly wouldn't have the resources to even save their own.
originally posted by: ikonoklast
We've been hearing lots of things from health authorities along the lines of someone not being tested for Ebola and instead being sent home because they did not have certain symptoms of Ebola and therefore Ebola was ruled out.
I think this is dangerous! It can result in people being sent home with Ebola because they didn't have some common symptom, and that can result in an epidemic spreading.
I saw this table of symptoms in the New England Journal of Medicine and thought it was worth repeating. This was published by the WHO Ebola Response Team and the percentages are from the current outbreak in Africa. I did flip all of the percentages except for one from what percentage of people do have a certain symptom to what percentage don't. I think it makes it more obvious how many cases might be missed because someone doesn't have a particular symptom.
12.9% did not have a fever (11.8% of those who died did not) - About 1 in 8 do NOT have a fever!
23.6% did not feel fatigue (23.6% of those who died did not) - About 1 out of 4 do NOT feel fatigue!
32.4% did not vomit (30.6% of those who died did not) - About 1 out of 3 do NOT vomit!
34.4% did not have diarrhea (31.7% of those who died did not) - Anout 1 out of 3 do NOT have diarrhea!
In addition:
35.5% did not have loss of appetite (36% of those who died did not)
46.6% did not have a headache (46.2% of those who died did not)
55.7% did not have abdominal pain (56.5% of those who died did not)
60.6% did not have joint pain (59.3% of those who died did not
61.1% did not have muscle pain (59.8% of those who died did not)
63.0% did not have chest pain (59.8% of those who died did not
79.2% did not have conjunctivitis (red Ebola eyes) (76.4% of those who died did not)
82.0% did not have unexplained bleeding (79.8% of those who died did not)
92.3% did not have eye pain (91.1% of those who died did not)
This is the one percentage I didn't flip. When someone tells you that Ebola patients do not cough or sneeze so you won't catch it from droplets aerosolized in the air from an Ebola patient coughing, you can now cite this statistic:
29.6% of Ebola patients DO cough. And 32.5% of people who died from Ebola did cough. So about 1 out of 3 cough.
There is much more, including an expanded table of these symptoms here:
SOURCE: NEJM - Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa — The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections