Ebola toll rises in 'unprecedented' outbreak (not Aprils fools)

[vontar]

Ebola toll rises in 'unprecedented' outbreak

Need to keep watch on things like this. 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/31/health/africa-ebola/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[vontar]

Things are getting worse down there.

 

It is just a matter of time until they spread to it to Europe and USA.  Some doctor won't be quarantined long enough and will fly it back home with him/her.

[xRUSTYx]

I've been keeping a close watch on this over the past month or so .... Things aren't looking good.

[leftyk82]

Just got word that good friends of mine leaving for Lagos on a mission trip.....they are canceling it. Low risk but high consequences if the worst were to happen. Heartbroken for them and for the 2,000 kids who look forward to the camp all year

[Oh Shoot]

I've been keeping a close watch on this over the past month or so .... Things aren't looking good.

 

Unless it can mutate into airborne infection mode or find widespread intermediate carrier host,  Ebola is a poor candidate for a pandemic.

 

- OS

Edited July 31, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[jacob]

[quote name="Oh Shoot" post="1174071" timestamp="1406774831"]Unless it can mutate into airborne infection mode or find widespread intermediate carrier host, Ebola is a poor candidate for a pandemic. - OS[/quote] dammit man, quit ruining our zombie apocalypse by interjecting common sense into the matter....B)

[xRUSTYx]

Unless it can mutate into airborne infection mode or find widespread intermediate carrier host,  Ebola is a poor candidate for a pandemic.

 

- OS

 

Completely understood .... I fear if the virus spreads to enough people, it will somehow mutate in to some sort of influenza (or airborne illness) and spread that way.  It may be tinfoil hat stuff, but after reading "The Hot Zone" in high school (literally ~ the only book I ever finished reading) -- I hear "ebola" and feel like running for the nearest hills!  LOL

[Oh Shoot]

Completely understood .... I fear if the virus spreads to enough people, it will somehow mutate in to some sort of influenza (or airborne illness) and spread that way.  It may be tinfoil hat stuff, but after reading "The Hot Zone" in high school (literally ~ the only book I ever finished reading) -- I hear "ebola" and feel like running for the nearest hills!  LOL

 

Yeah, I read The Hot Zone too. All those hemorrhagic fever diseases are truly nasty. 

 

And certainly microbes do "evolve", hence the super resistant strains of staph and strep, so I suppose anything is possible.

 

I remember hearing some medical researcher at a conference I was shooting way back in the early AIDS days ... he was talking about how if a common virus like that of the common cold could pick up the Immunodeficient factor, it would indeed be the doomsday bug. You'd simply get a cold that you just couldn't shake which would eventually wear ya down til you croaked.

 

Obviously hasn't happened. Yet.

 

- OS

[xRUSTYx]

 

And certainly microbes do "evolve", hence the super resistant strains of staph and strep, so I suppose anything is possible.

 

 

Interesting you bring this up OS ...

 

1)  My wife, when pregnant with our now (6 month) old .... had a simple bladder infection.  It was drug resistance (via oral antibiotics) ~ they couldn't give her IV drugs due to her being pregnant. She ended up spending time in the hospital twice for it, and wasn't able to kick it until after our son was born.  It was bad ~ and the only thing that would touch it was IV drugs for 2-3 days straight (at which point ~ they still didn't want her to go home)

 

2)  My BIL is a PA at Duke.  I remember being around the dinner table with him a couple of years back and he was telling me about all the drug resistant bacteria's hospital's are now dealing with.  He said every hospital is encountering these bacteria's and they are only getting worse.  

 

I really do fear what the next 10-20 years may hold in the illness arena when all your standard antibiotic's won't touch things .... And from what I can see ~ there aren't many, if any, med's coming out to help combat these super bugs either.  It was only a matter of time ...

[RED333]

2)  My BIL is a PA at Duke.  I remember being around the dinner table with him a couple of years back and he was telling me about all the drug resistant bacteria's hospital's are now dealing with.  He said every hospital is encountering these bacteria's and they are only getting worse.

 

These things are scary, have an old friend, a nurse, poked him self with a used needle trying to get the cap back on.

Staph got in, he had a stroke at 35 years old. MRS are getting worse all the time, and no fix out there.

[Dennis1209]

Scary and sad.

 

Here in the U.S. and globally we're well past the historical time line for another pandemic. If you reason it out we're less prepared and more vulnerable today than decades and centuries ago. There's no way to prepare for it because it could be any of dozens of plagues from Spanish flu, Avian, Ebola, etc., natural or man-made.

 

With the global population at over seven billion and the vast majority of those living in cities and urban settings... The speed it can travel from one Continent to another is now measured in hours instead of historical months / years. You get the picture.

 

Modern technology and medicine will do nothing to slow the next global pandemic at all. By the time it is identified it will have spread beyond control and in the process of mutating. Any attempt for vaccines will be futile since by the time it is identified, a vaccine is invented / manufactures & delivered, it will have most likely run its course.

 

That's not even taking into account the percentage of first responders and medical professionals that will be at the most risk of contracting the plague. Our next global pandemic is a 100% certainty and will spread faster than anytime in history. For economic and political reasons, our borders will not be shut down until it's much too late.

 

Man, this is scary!

[Clod Stomper]

It makes one wonder, though. Some of the cases making the news are doctors and AIDS workers. If a doctor cannot avoid contracting it, then it must be spreading pretty easily. I can't see a doctor treating an Ebola patient without taking some extraordinary protective measures.

[Dennis1209]

It makes one wonder, though. Some of the cases making the news are doctors and AIDS workers. If a doctor cannot avoid contracting it, then it must be spreading pretty easily. I can't see a doctor treating an Ebola patient without taking some extraordinary protective measures.

 

As a retired maintenance hospital guy, there's much more to it than the doctor / hospital staff doing all they can do to protect themselves. I won't even get into the primitive conditions medical staff face over sea's.

 

Take into account people have to be isolated, in a functioning, frequently checked and adjusted positive / negative pressure isolation room with adequate number of air changes / hour. HEPA filters must be changed and checked for static pressure frequently, etc. etc. Surgical gloves, HEPA masks, gowns, etc. are NOT a 100% solution to not contracting a disease, they can fail just like your critical defense weapon.

 

Then there's human nature to rush and take shortcuts after awhile. On and on...

 

You got to admire and respect those people who put their lives on the line daily to humanity... Doctors, nurses, medical staff, fire fighters, the police and our brave military...

Edited August 2, 2014 by Dennis1209

[DaveTN]

I’ve been watching “last Ship” every week to see what happens. That Captains already been dead once.

[vontar]

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/03/gupta-were-going-to-see-ebola-around-the-world/?hpt=hp_t2

 

Gupta: We're going to see Ebola around the world

[jacob]

Pretty good article. The main difference in spreading disease in the modern world is that the means of rapid transportation today provides a good conduit for communicable illnesses. Hopefully what the doc stated will hold true and we will find some way to contain and cure this issue before it were to possibly get out of hand....

[Sam1]

Unless it can mutate into airborne infection mode or find widespread intermediate carrier host,  Ebola is a poor candidate for a pandemic.

 

- OS

 

Seems to be doing pretty good right now though, don't it?

[vontar]

I think it has already mutated some, as it now can take up to 21 days before symptoms, so it appears it is not killing as fast as it once did.

 

(If 1 or 2 both of these patients that got transported to Atlanta survive they will probably go on a national book signing thus reassuring the general public it is not as big a deal as it is.)

[Oh Shoot]

Seems to be doing pretty good right now though, don't it?

 

Well, no. It's not. I guess 700 deaths over three or four countries qualifies as a epidemic, but for sure it doesn't even register on the pandemic scale. Hell, though exact estimates are far from reliable, the normal flu strains kill many thousands per year.

 

I think it has already mutated some, as it now can take up to 21 days before symptoms, so it appears it is not killing as fast as it once did.

 

Has ever been thus since first identified, nothing new.

 

- OS

Edited August 3, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[tnguy]

I recall reading that one of the factors in a pandemic being overdue is simply that we have adopted much better hygiene practices. Simple hand washing helps prevent a lot of transmission. Add into that improved communications and if any mass infection starts to occur, transmission opportunities will be cut-down almost overnight. It could still get bad but we are not likely to see anything extremely gruesome in the west again. Though something like CJD is still a threat as it lies dormant for a long period.

[Oh Shoot]

... Though something like CJD is still a threat as it lies dormant for a long period.

 

But transmission of that is through such rare parameters no way it could ever become even common, let alone epidemic/pandemic.

 

edit: well, maybe if everybody starts eating human brains after The Collapse. :)

 

- OS

Edited August 3, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[vontar]

not to be an alarmist, but

 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/tenn-man-quarantine-ebola-outbreak-im-feeling/story?id=24810734

 

A Tennessee doctor who placed himself in quarantine after volunteering in West Africa, where the Ebola virus is rampant, says he's "feeling well" and showing no sign of symptoms.

 

 

*******He is going to do a 21 self quarantine it appears.

 

***********

 

Also I have not found confirmed on major news site but one person feared dead in london after walking off a plane.

I am not putting a ton of stock in this yet but needs to be watched just in case.  

 

********************************************************************************

Ebola terror: Passenger dies at London airport Published: 35 mins ago

(MIRROR) — Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/ebola-terror-passenger-dies-at-london-airport/#Kg0iMrtU5aUKFRtA.99

*******************

 

After reading that story, only thing that is really known is a 72 year old woman died after getting off a plane from Sierra Leone, does not come out and say it was Ebola.   However I say it still strengthens a case for needing quarantine for people traveling from the effected area.

Edited August 3, 2014 by vontar

[Clod Stomper]

edit: well, maybe if everybody starts eating human brains after The Collapse. :)
 
- OS

Wait. We're not supposed to be doing that already?

Oops. My bad.

[tnguy]

But transmission of that is through such rare parameters no way it could ever become even common, let alone epidemic/pandemic.
 
edit: well, maybe if everybody starts eating human brains after The Collapse. :)
 
- OS

Apparently the UK was gearing up for a full-blown outbreak. Obviously it didn't materialize.

[Oh Shoot]

Apparently the UK was gearing up for a full-blown outbreak. Obviously it didn't materialize.

 

That was BSE (mad cow), right? Similar but not same as CJD. I can see no possible way to get an "outbreak" of CJD.

 

- OS

Edited August 3, 2014 by Oh Shoot