Prisoner with suspected case of Ebola escapes from hospital in Uganda

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Ebola is passed through fluids, not air. So it is a little harder to pass than say the flu. It is not a very aggressive illness.

reply to post by nixie_nox


What if he died and his body ended up in a water supply?

Not really likely, but could the virus transmit that way?

~tenth

reply to post by nixie_nox


The one thing I was curious about though is how long the virus can live outside of a host. Since it is spread by bodily fluids, (saliva) then a sneeze in a crowded area, like a subway, could potentially infect a few people, I would think. Then those few people infect a few more, etc..
Thats assuming that the spray, hits them in the mouth or possibly eyes.
IDK, just throwing that out there.
I do realize that the virus has been around since 1976 and has never actually been declared an epidemic, so I think there is nothing to worry about.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


The Ebola virus cannot live very easily outside the body and is killed very rapidly by sunlight.

source

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

The Ebola virus cannot live very easily outside the body and is killed very rapidly by sunlight.

source

edit on 3-8-2012 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

Yea, but from your source, they contradict themselves with this sentence.

Ebola has been found in chimpanzees and gorillas as well as forest antelopes. But the suspicion is that bats represent the natural reservoir, perhaps transmitting it to humans through fruit contaminated with faeces, saliva, or urine

If it cant live very long outside of a host, how can one get infected from something like a piece of fruit dropped from a bats mouth? (for example)

reply to post by Juggernog


From what i can tell its possible under perfect conditions for the virus to live for a couple of days outside the body. But at the same time sunlight kills it quite quickly.

I cant find any data on it being a threat to water supplies.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


The "bat" theory of infection was used in the movie Contagion. Ground Zero was Hong Kong, if I remember and it started with a Bat, dropping a piece of fruit on a pig farm. The pig that ate it was sent to a restaurant, the chef butchered the pig, then shook hands with a business woman, who then flew back to the states.
The result was, much of the human race, wiped out.
Good movie.

Im surprised at the lack of public data on this virus, they are not even sure where it comes from.

Im watching this vid at the moment.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


According to that video... The local diet includes, monkey's insects and rats, all suspected carriers of the virus?
Insects, carriers? Ive never heard of that.

Originally posted by Juggernog
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

According to that video... The local diet includes, monkey's insects and rats, all suspected carriers of the virus?
Insects, carriers? Ive never heard of that.

I think they mean 'suspected' in the way that it has to come from something alive. So anything alive is a suspect at this point.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


If insects could transmit it, then that would mean mosquito's could transmit it, if that were the case then It would be much more dangerous, with the gazilllion mosquito's in Africa.

Originally posted by Juggernog
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

If insects could transmit it, then that would mean mosquito's could transmit it, if that were the case then It would be much more dangerous, with the gazilllion mosquito's in Africa.

True but i think if that was the case everyone in Africa would have died a long time ago. Its living inside some creature in Africa but it must be in one that doesn't come in contact with people very much if they go 20 years without an outbreak.

Ebola is obviously not cut out for living inside a human because it kills the host much to quickly. So quickly that it stops the transmission to other people. That kind of mortality is counter productive for a virus who's only goal in life is to reproduce and spread.

I cant find many other video's on Ebola..strange.

Found one here

The question is, how did he escape? I would think that people with this virus would be held under lock and key with constant surveillance just to be sure they wouldn't get out.

Me thinks that maybe he was allowed to get out, but maybe I'm just being paranoid.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


What I'm more worried about is a bird or something getting a free meal off his corpse and it spreading that way.

Isn't that how the movie Contagion started, with a bird?

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

What I'm more worried about is a bird or something getting a free meal off his corpse and it spreading that way.

Isn't that how the movie Contagion started, with a bird?

Well, at the end of the movie, it was shown to be started with a Bat.
Read up a few posts, Ive already mentioned it.

Originally posted by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
The question is, how did he escape? I would think that people with this virus would be held under lock and key with constant surveillance just to be sure they wouldn't get out.

Me thinks that maybe he was allowed to get out, but maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Me thinks you are getting very paranoid but I do wonder how this person was allowed to escape... i know its not a Prison but wasn't he a prisoner? Which means he should of had a guard or two!!

I had a feeling this would happen after watching the movie Contagion, and I'm not bull#ting either!

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by Corruption Exposed

 

My concern is somebody gets on a plane and all of the sudden we have Europe and other places infected..

Could be a really bad scene if this doesn't get under control.

~Tenth

That's exactly what I said in the previous thread concerning this outbreak. All it takes is for a single person who is infected one day, travels the next via air, has sex or begins to bleed out & is taken to a rural hospital that isn't equipped to not only properly handle & quickly diagnose the disease & BAM! We have ebola in Europe or the US. This has the potential to be very ugly.

This wasn't anything to worry about, IMO, when it was out in a countryside village. It became worrisome when cases in Kampala started turning up and a suspected 1, at least, in Kenya.

Now this guy runs off.... Wonderful. Didn't it occur to anyone that having guards might not be the worst idea? I don't think Ebola's had a big city population to play in very often, if ever before. Panic is also an issue as I've been reading now. Yeah, guards would have been just common sense to my thinking. Who they'd end up guarding from whom is a matter of interpretation.

Personally, I'm thinking he wouldn't be too much a threat, would he? It's fluid based, not air...so unless he got outright homicidal and deliberately infecting people, isn;'t he just running with a high likelihood of just dying somewhere? Just warn the public not to approach when he's eventually located...or what's left.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed

My concern is that this might be a mutated strain

or that it mutates again.

I find it interesting that we do not get news of "terrorist organizations" (well non governmental ones. The CDC and the WHO are already there) attempting to obtain specimens.

There are four types of Ebola: Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Reston, and Ebola-Cote-d'Ivoire.

and

The Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo reportedly sent members to Zaire during an outbreak to harvest the virus.

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD):Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever @ globalsecurity.org