Ebola

hedonist

kce8 said:

hedonist said:

Not to downplay the severity of its devastation, but it's almost hilarious - just saw a news promo kicking off with EBOLA IS HERE.

I tried to find it online, but I watched a piece recently of two guys in their late teens who created a simple strip test for it. If I locate it, I'll post it. They rocked!

What did they say about the strip test? Do you must have symptomes to get a result?
Great for this young guys, hopefully they can get it fixed soon!
:-S

Found it! Their still trying to raise funds and I'm sure there's a ways to go, but kudos to them!
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/09/er_freshmen_build_ebola_test/campus.html

kce8

hedonist said:

kce8 said:

hedonist said:

Not to downplay the severity of its devastation, but it's almost hilarious - just saw a news promo kicking off with EBOLA IS HERE.

I tried to find it online, but I watched a piece recently of two guys in their late teens who created a simple strip test for it. If I locate it, I'll post it. They rocked!

What did they say about the strip test? Do you must have symptomes to get a result?
Great for this young guys, hopefully they can get it fixed soon!
:-S

Found it! Their still trying to raise funds and I'm sure there's a ways to go, but kudos to them!
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/09/er_freshmen_build_ebola_test/campus.html

Thank you hedonist !
Think I will read it tomorrow bc it´s so late - Too tired now for this long english report.
Great to see some young guys making such good work ! >-

brianlux

Looking at multiple articles from a wide variety of sources (and I've tried to stick with fairly reliable sources, definitely avoiding the gossipy kind), this is yet another issue that raises many questions with little consensus of answers. From what I've read, the opinions range anywhere from saying Ebola will mutate and becoming air borne leading to pandemic to the disease being fairly easy to contain in the US and other countries. I don't know what to believe. When AIDS first struck my mother (who was not at all prone to scandals or gossip) was working as a lab technologist in a well respected Bay Area hospital and she was convinced that AIDS would become air borne before the end of the the 20th century. That did not happen. So who knows. Probably the best thing would be to restrict travel in and out of countries where the disease is spreading quickly, quarantine those infected, work on solving the spread of the disease in Africa (as bootlegger1o suggested) and use common sense about hygiene. And in the mean time, appreciate life and have a good time.

Other thoughts?

Last-12-Exit

I am not a doctor nor do I claim to have any knowledge of mutations to viruses::::::

I do not think it will become airborne. The government loves media driven panics. Remember when an oil refinery in the gulf was damaged by hurricane Katrina? One week later, gas prices soared over $2.00 more/gallon.

brianlux

Last-12-Exit said:

I am not a doctor nor do I claim to have any knowledge of mutations to viruses::::::

I do not think it will become airborne. The government loves media driven panics. Remember when an oil refinery in the gulf was damaged by hurricane Katrina? One week later, gas prices soared over $2.00 more/gallon.

Someone always capitalizes on this sort of thing, that's for sure.

Shawshank

Every time someone gets a virus, that virus mutates in some form before moving onto the next person. In most cases the virus doesn't make major mutations...but it is for all intents and purposes...a great example of evolution.

As the mutations occur new vaccines have to be developed. As the mutations occur symptoms may change or become more severe. While yes...HIV and AIDS could eventually mutate to become airborne...it seems to me it would take much longer. Not as many people are going to be exposed to it and it's not as east to catch as ebola. The more people that get ebola, which is fairly easily spread, the more mutations that can occur, and the chances of it becoming airborne grow exponentially.

Technically, ebola is capable of being airborne now. You wouldn't want to walk through the air someone sneezed or coughed in recently. You wouldn't want to touch something that still has their sweat on it. They said on CBS news last night the virus can remain viable outside the body for many minutes...up to hours depending on conditions. At this point as long as the environment is not dessicated, the virus can still be infectious.

bootlegger10

I don't understand the screenings at airports when there is a 21 day window before someone shows symptoms. The guy that flew to Dallas from Liberia is a perfect example that those screenings are meaningless (obviously they can catch someone with symptoms at the moment). The screenings should identify those with Ebola and those who don't, just like a metal detector is supposed to identify those with metal and those who don't.

Shawshank

bootlegger10 said:

I don't understand the screenings at airports when there is a 21 day window before someone shows symptoms. The guy that flew to Dallas from Liberia is a perfect example that those screenings are meaningless (obviously they can catch someone with symptoms at the moment). The screenings should identify those with Ebola and those who don't, just like a metal detector is supposed to identify those with metal and those who don't.

They are trying to put the public at ease that they have something which can quickly spiral out of control...under control. Nothing more. Nothing less. The screenings won't do shit unless the person is feverish and has other symptoms...which as we all know...takes roughly 21 days to manifest. How are they going to control the movement of people on days 1 through 20? We still aren't 100% sure that it's not communicable before symptoms present themselves.

rr165892

Saw more then a few people while traveling with little white masks.

Last-12-Exit

Shawshank said:

Every time someone gets a virus, that virus mutates in some form before moving onto the next person. In most cases the virus doesn't make major mutations...but it is for all intents and purposes...a great example of evolution.

As the mutations occur new vaccines have to be developed. As the mutations occur symptoms may change or become more severe. While yes...HIV and AIDS could eventually mutate to become airborne...it seems to me it would take much longer. Not as many people are going to be exposed to it and it's not as east to catch as ebola. The more people that get ebola, which is fairly easily spread, the more mutations that can occur, and the chances of it becoming airborne grow exponentially.

Technically, ebola is capable of being airborne now. You wouldn't want to walk through the air someone sneezed or coughed in recently. You wouldn't want to touch something that still has their sweat on it. They said on CBS news last night the virus can remain viable outside the body for many minutes...up to hours depending on conditions. At this point as long as the environment is not dessicated, the virus can still be infectious.

From what I've heard, it no more easily spread than HIV. The only way to get is from bodily fluids, no?

Shawshank

Last-12-Exit said:

From what I've heard, it no more easily spread than HIV. The only way to get is from bodily fluids, no?

Depends on who's talking. The Dr. on the CBS Evening News last night clearly stated that you CAN possibly get it if someone sneezes, because it's in the droplets and you can breathe those in. He also said that you can get it from simple fluids like sweat and saliva, and that if you rub your eye, or nose after contacting it, you can get it that way. Neither of those scenarios spread HIV from what I've heard. As long as the environment the virus is in is not dessicated then it is still infectious.

Shawshank

And also they said on the news last night something that I hadn't thought of, and made me feel at least a little better. Ebola usually kills because of dehydration which causes organ failure along with bleeding out internally. Here in the US we have ways to treat all of the symptoms that kill people with Ebola. Anti-coagulation, we can give them blood clotters. Dehydration, we can give them IV fluids. Etc. etc.

dignin

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/6878695/ebola-virus-outbreak-symptoms

How you can get Ebola

1) You can get the virus if you have "direct contact" with a range of bodily fluids from a sick person, including blood, saliva, breast milk, stool, sweat, semen, tears, vomit, and urine. "Direct contact" means these fluids need to get into your broken skin (such as a wound) or touch your mucous membranes (mouth, nose, eyes, vagina).

2) So you can get Ebola by kissing or sharing food with someone who is infectious.

3) Mothers with Ebola can give the disease to their babies. Ebola spreads through breastfeeding — even after recovery from the disease. As one study put it, "It seems prudent to advise breastfeeding mothers who survive (Ebola) to avoid breastfeeding for at least some weeks after recovery and to provide them with alternative means of feeding their infants."

4) You can get Ebola through sex with an Ebola patient. The virus has been able to live in semen up to 82 days after a patient became symptomatic, which means sexual transmission — even with someone who has survived the disease for months — is possible.

5) You can get the virus by eating wild animals infected with Ebola or coming into contact with their bodily fluids. The fruit bat is believed to be the animal reservoir for Ebola, and when it's prepared for a meal or eaten raw, people get sick.

So you can get the virus through exposure to bat secretions. However, if you cook a bat infected with Ebola and then eat it, you won't get sick because the virus dies during cooking.

6) You can get Ebola through contact with an infected surface. Though Ebola is easily killed with disinfectants like bleach, if it isn't caught, it can live outside the body on, say, a doorknob or counter top, for several hours. In body fluids, like blood, the virus can survive for several days. So you'd need to touch an infected surface, and then put your hands in your mouth and eyes.

This is why the funerals of Ebola victims are problematic. Someone who has died from the virus will have a very high viral load. Since the virus can live in bodily fluids on their body, if you participate in the ritual washing of an Ebola victim and then touch your hands to your face, you could get the virus.

7) You could also get the virus by working in a biosafety-level-4 lab that studies Ebola, touching lab specimens, and then putting your contaminated hands in your mouth, eyes or a cut.

8) You can get Ebola by being pricked with a needle or syringe that has been contaminated with the virus. This has been a source of transmission for health workers, but unless you're sharing needles with Ebola victims, this isn't likely.

How you can't get Ebola

1) You can't get Ebola from someone who is not already sick. The virus only turns up in people's bodily fluids after a person starts to feel ill, and only then can they spread it to another person.

This is why health officials say they are not worried about the other passengers on the Texas patient's flight into the United States. At that time, the patient was asymptomatic and therefore not a risk to those around him.

2) You can't get Ebola from mosquitoes. The CDC says, "Only mammals (for example, humans, bats, monkeys and apes) have shown the ability to spread and become infected with Ebola virus."

3) You usually can't get Ebola through coughing or sneezing. The virus isn't airborne, thankfully, and experts expect that it will never become airborne. But, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, "If a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person's eyes, nose or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease." This happens rarely and usually only affects health workers or those caring for the sick.

The bottom line: Ebola is difficult to catch

As you'll probably have noted, Ebola isn't very easy to transmit. The scenarios under which it spreads are very specific. And Ebola doesn't spread quickly, either. A mathematical epidemiologist who studies Ebola wrote in the Washington Post, "The good news is that Ebola has a lower reproductive rate than measles in the pre-vaccination days or the Spanish flu." He found that each Ebola case produces between 1.3 and 1.8 secondary cases. That means an Ebola victim usually only infects about one other person. Compare that with measles, which creates 17 secondary cases.

If you do the math, that means a single case in the US could lead to one or two others, but since we have robust public health measures here, it probably won't go further than that. Compare that to West Africa, which is now dealing with upwards of 6,000 cases in a completely broken health system. That's where experts say the worry about Ebola should be placed.

PJ_Soul

Last-12-Exit said:

Shawshank said:

Every time someone gets a virus, that virus mutates in some form before moving onto the next person. In most cases the virus doesn't make major mutations...but it is for all intents and purposes...a great example of evolution.

As the mutations occur new vaccines have to be developed. As the mutations occur symptoms may change or become more severe. While yes...HIV and AIDS could eventually mutate to become airborne...it seems to me it would take much longer. Not as many people are going to be exposed to it and it's not as east to catch as ebola. The more people that get ebola, which is fairly easily spread, the more mutations that can occur, and the chances of it becoming airborne grow exponentially.

Technically, ebola is capable of being airborne now. You wouldn't want to walk through the air someone sneezed or coughed in recently. You wouldn't want to touch something that still has their sweat on it. They said on CBS news last night the virus can remain viable outside the body for many minutes...up to hours depending on conditions. At this point as long as the environment is not dessicated, the virus can still be infectious.

From what I've heard, it no more easily spread than HIV. The only way to get is from bodily fluids, no?

Not at all like HIV. I.e. you could get ebola just from kissing someone with the disease or if they sneezed in you mouth or something (gross). It spreads more like a cold does (not nearly as communicable supposedly), AND in the ways in which HIV is spread. Double whammy I suppose. Still, I see this as no threat in the US at all. Way more people in the US alone die of the flu every year than those who have died of this ebola outbreak worldwide. Perspective.

kce8

Just read that there is a nurse in Madrid who is the first who get Ebola in Europe......shit :(

kce8

And they said that in Uganda is now the `Brother´ of Ebola "The Marburg Fever" too!!!
Fu..ing hell, they also meant they think there will be some people with Ebola in GB and France.
A 33 year old cameraman of NBC was brought to Omaha and a woman from Norway to Oslo.

The shit is growing....

rgambs

It's gonna wipe us out, just like the H1N1 bird flu and the swine flu did. 8-|

kce8

One good news: the first person who came to Hamburg with Ebola was going home well at Saturday!

kce8

rgambs said:

It's gonna wipe us out, just like the H1N1 bird flu and the swine flu did. 8-|

Ah no, I do not think it will wipe us out but there will be more than we might imagine...
just seriously hoping I may be wrong with this - just don´t believe it :-S

kce8

Someone said the Organisations don´t get enough donations to help !
I think I will not get some more PJ stuff this year - I will donate instead!