Jump to content

Ebola, what you're not being told

Rate this topic


Earthnut

Recommended Posts

This first video is posted in another thread, but felt that the subject of Ebola needed to have its own thread for discussion. It's getting more serious by the day.

Ebola, what you're not being told

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnQVUf775VE

It's so painfully sad that people are dying, and now, retailers have to make a profit off of it. And what's even worse about this is the customers needing it are poor.

Ebola fears send Liberia hand sanitiser prices soaring

https://news.yahoo.com/ebola-fears-send-liberia-hand-sanitiser-prices-soaring-182024893.html

London (AFP) - The struggle to contain the worst-ever Ebola epidemic in west Africa is being complicated by the soaring cost of hand sanitiser, a leading charity said on Thursday.
Mike Noyes, ActionAid UK's Head of Humanitarian Response, said the prices of some hygiene products had gone up sevenfold, making them unaffordable for many in the region
"Hand sanitiser that they used to pay seven Liberian dollars for is now 50 dollars ($0.54, 0.40 euros), and that makes even protecting yourself a huge challenge for very poor families in quite isolated areas," he told AFP.
Demand for sanitary products has risen sharply as communities have become increasingly aware of hygiene measures that can halt the transmission of the deadly disease.
But this has led to a steep rise in prices, compounding the challenges facing people in affected countries like Liberia, where the average monthly income is just $65 (49 euros), according to the World Bank.
The current outbreak is the largest in history and has killed 156 people in Liberia and 729 across the west African region.
The virus can be fatal in up to 90 percent of cases, though this outbreak has killed about 60 percent of those infected. While there is no known cure, sanitary precautions can greatly reduce the risk of transmission.
Noyes also warned that the crisis could be economically ruinous for some of the poorest communities in the region.
"When markets stop functioning because people don't want to go to them or people are advised not to go to them, trading doesn't happen," he said.
"That means people don't necessarily sell the products they need to sell, they don't buy what they need to buy."
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a new strain, the one that is in Guinea. It will probably someday be names "Ebola Guinea" They name each strain after it's "birthplace". I think the strain in Liberia is Ebola Zaire, the deadliest strain until now. My concern, and my belief is that the virus in the case of the doctors that caught it, is that it is airborne. They were wearing surgical masks, visors, gloves, aprons, boots, etc, all the usual precautions and were careful. But if it is airborne and travels in small particles? They need the self contained suits now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Elders (Moderators)

It is a very worrying and tragic situation. It's made worse because the people who are most at risk don't have access to means of protecting themselves.

I started watching the youtube video you posted, Earthnut, and got to the point about it possibly/probably being airborne, and recalled mention of that in one of my lecture-courses-on-DVD. This is an extract from the coursebook that accompanies that course*:

One of the latest forms of haemorrhagic fever to emerge is Ebola, named after the Ebola River in the Congo, where it was first described in 1976. It is a zoonosis – a disease that can infect both animals and humans. Ebola is a savage killer, with a fatality rate between 50 and 90 percent. Its emergence may be yet another example of expanding agriculture bringing people into more frequent contact with the original host – in this case, fruit bats.

One of the five known types of Ebola, now called Ebola-Reston, almost escaped into the United States in October 1989 from infected monkeys at Hazleton Laboratories in Reston, Virginia. The army and the US Centers for Disease Control had to be called in to contain the outbreak.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Reston incident were that six lab workers tested positive for Ebola antibodies but displayed no symptoms, and two of those workers had no direct contact with infected monkeys, indicating that the microbe might have actually gone airborne. Luckily, Ebola-Reston turned out to be harmless to humans, but the next zoonosis may not be so benign.

The copyright date on that course is 2011, so I would assume that more research has been done in the meantime. But the possibility of one variant of Ebola being airborne has been known for a long time. I'm not sufficiently educated to figure out what the differences are between variants, but I assume that the reason the Ebola-Reston variant is "harmless" to humans is either because our immune systems fight it off successfully, or that variant can't get a toe-hold, so to speak, in human cells because it doesn't have the ability to inject itself into human cells. But that's at the cellular level; it doesn't mean that the method of transmission is different.

* "Mysteries of the Microscopic World", Professor Bruce E Fleury,Tulane University. Copyright The Teaching Company, 2011.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, it's official ~ Ebola is in America

Plane Carrying American Ebola Victim Lands in Georgia

Family of Doctor With Ebola Optimistic About His Recovery
Aug 2, 2014, 1:28 PM ET
By JANICE McDONALD, GILLIAN MOHNEY and BEN CANDEA via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/american-doctor-ebola-walk-georgia-hospital/story?id=24818577

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Elders (Moderators)

This looks quite a good, though short, news item on Ebola: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26835233 - at least it's in words I can understand.

There's a couple of things that are disturbing: One is the consumption of "bush meat", which includes chimpanzees and monkeys. In evolutionary terms, that's close to cannibalism, and can have serious health consequences for humans, such as kuru and possibly HIV. The other is the consumption of fruit bats, which are the likely vector for Ebola.

But these outbreaks occur in areas where there aren't sufficient controls over the safety of foods, and often also in areas where people eat whatever protein they can get hold of. And also in areas where there isn't good sanitation, as I can imagine that such a virulent virus would survive for a while in faeces. Another of my lectures-on-DVD courses is on the history of Africa, and I feel that a lot of the problems that African nations are facing today are the consequence of European colonisation (for profit) and subsequent abandonment.

I do hope that if (when?) Ebola escapes into the West, it can be contained. The survival rate can be good for victims who are well supported in intensive care facilities. And maybe prompt more research into vaccines for such virulent diseases. Just because it's over there doesn't mean it won't be over here, within the timeframe of an air flight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Americans Fighting Deadly Ebola Virus Coming Home to the US

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjIaUvRKAM8

American missionary with Ebola to leave Liberia Tuesday

https://news.yahoo.com/american-nurse-ebola-leave-liberia-tuesday-200839705.html

ATLANTA (AP) — A second American medical missionary stricken with the often deadly Ebola virus is expected to be flown Tuesday to the U.S. for treatment, following a colleague who was admitted over the weekend to Emory University Hospital's infectious disease unit.
Top American public health officials continue to emphasize that treating Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly in the U.S. poses no risks to the public as West Africa grapples with its worst recorded Ebola outbreak in history.
"The plain truth is that we can stop Ebola," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week. "We know how to control it: hospital infection control and stopping it at the source in Africa."
Brantley and Writebol served on the same medical mission team that was treating Ebola patients in Liberia. Also spreading in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the outbreak has infected more than 1,300 people in West Africa, killing at least 729 of them.
Liberian officials said a medical evacuation plane would transport Writebol to the United States early Tuesday. Information Minister Lewis Brown told The Associated Press that the flight was expected to leave West Africa between at 1 a.m. and 1.30 a.m. local time Tuesday.
Brantly arrived Saturday under the same protocol, flying from West Africa to Dobbins Air Reserve base outside Atlanta in a small plane equipped to contain infectious diseases. A small police escort followed his ambulance to the hospital, where he emerged dressed head to toe in white protective clothing and walked into the hospital on his own power.
In another television appearance, Frieden said on "Fox News Sunday" that Brantly "appears to be improving."
An American mission official has said Brantly was treating victims of the outbreak at a hospital compound near Monrovia, Liberia, when he became infected. They said Writebol served as a hygienist whose role included decontaminating those entering or leaving the Ebola treatment area at that hospital.
There is no cure for the Ebola virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever that kills at least 60 percent of the people it infects in Africa. It is spread by close contact with bodily fluids and blood, meaning it is not spread as easily as airborne influenza or the common cold.
That means any modern hospital using standard infection-control measures should be able to handle it. American doctors say the virus could be curtailed in Africa by a better functioning health care system.
Emory officials have not commented on Brantly's condition. And no immediate details were provided by U.S. health officials for Writebol's planned treatment.
The hospital's infectious disease unit is one of about four in the country equipped to test and treat people exposed to dangerous viruses.
Patients are quarantined, sealed off from anyone who is not in protective gear. Lab tests are conducted inside the unit, ensuring that viruses don't leave the quarantined area.
Family members can see and communicate with patients only through barriers.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using our website you consent to our Terms of Use of service and Guidelines. These are available at all times via the menu and footer including our Privacy Policy policy.