Ebola outbreak in West Africa difficult to contain

[MJP]

Meeting of Cobra . . .

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1309883/cobra-meeting-as-uk-doctors-warned-over-ebola

 

UK and European flight routes to the countries affected by ebola

 

 

[arjunadawn]

Meeting of Cobra . . .

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1309883/cobra-meeting-as-uk-doctors-warned-over-ebola

 

UK and European flight routes to the countries affected by ebola

 

 

 

After all the facts and opinions are posted and considered it is this one graphic that really forces a bit of reflection for me- this is quite serious! Wow, this is just the flight patterns for this narrow slice of earth. To think how fast this virus could spread... This post is now a few weeks old, I think. Now the virus has hit far places of the world from N America to the Far East. I had thought Ebola didn't survive long outside its geographical comfort zone. Perhaps if it jumps from host to host it can?
 

[F430murci]

The below article would seem to have general application to most countries with advanced health care in place.

 

----------

 

Why Deadly Ebola Virus Is Likely to Hit the U.S. But Not Spread

 

The fatal virus rages in Africa, but the U.S. could contain its brutal effects.

 

Ebola is contagious only when symptomatic, so someone unknowingly harboring the virus would not pass it on, Monroe said.

 

Even passengers showing symptoms are unlikely to pass the disease on to fellow travelers, he said.

 

Blood and stool carry the most virus—which is why those at highest risk for Ebola infection are family members who care for sick loved ones and health care workers who treat patients or accidentally stick themselves with infected needles.

 

Theoretically, there could be enough virus in sweat or saliva to pass on the virus through, say, an airplane armrest or a nearby sneeze, said Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist and virologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York. But droplets would still need a way to get through the skin.

 

. . .

 

So, could the Ebola virus come to the United States? Definitely. Would it spread widely? Unlikely.

 

"We do not anticipate this will spread in the U.S. if an infected person is hospitalized here," CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement Tuesday. "We are taking action now by alerting health care workers in the U.S. and reminding them how to isolate and test suspected patients while following strict infection-control procedures."

 

American hospitals are adequately supplied with infection-control equipment like gloves, gowns, and masks that will prevent the spread of the disease. American medical care workers—educated by the AIDS epidemic—know how to keep themselves safe while treating sick patients. And the American system of reporting illness would identify a sick patient very quickly, allowing the disease to be contained and controlled.

[zydeco]

global travel should stop immediately for however long it takes to get this under control. will it, of course not. 

 

Yes.

[zydeco]

No flights out of or into Africa.  Better safe than sorry,.

[Farma]

Hadj starts in September. Millions of pilgrims from across the globe will attend including many from Africa. Health authorities must be concerned about returning pilgrims spreading it.

[MJP]

 

Meeting of Cobra . . .

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1309883/cobra-meeting-as-uk-doctors-warned-over-ebola

 

UK and European flight routes to the countries affected by ebola

 

 

 

After all the facts and opinions are posted and considered it is this one graphic that really forces a bit of reflection for me- this is quite serious! Wow, this is just the flight patterns for this narrow slice of earth. To think how fast this virus could spread... This post is now a few weeks old, I think. Now the virus has hit far places of the world from N America to the Far East. I had thought Ebola didn't survive long outside its geographical comfort zone. Perhaps if it jumps from host to host it can?
 

 

 

It's this one that really drives it home . . .

 

 

[F430murci]

A bit scary and US hospital are apparently on a bit of a heightened alert.

 

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n Ebola scare closed a Charlotte area emergency room briefly overnight in an incident that may play out many times over in the coming weeks with heightened fears about the virus.

 

It turns out it wasn't Ebola, but a spike in media coverage about the outbreak, along with some reminders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have put hospital staff on alert.

"Late last evening, a patient arrived at Carolinas Medical Center Emergency Department after visiting a country known for high risk of infectious diseases," Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte said in a statement Wednesday.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/ebola-scare-briefly-closes-charlotte-er-n168731

[F430murci]

Quarantine measures may have begun.  No doubt this is spooky over there.  All missionaries and charity workers from US apparently leaving . . .

 

----------

 

Liberia announced on Wednesday the quarantine of a number of communities and the closure of schools across the country, the toughest measures yet imposed by a West African government in a bid to halt the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

 

Security forces in Liberia were ordered to enforce the measures, part of an action plan that included placing all non-essential government workers on 30-day compulsory leave.

 

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/30/us-ebola-liberia-quarantine-idINKBN0FZ28720140730

[Noi657]

1st case found in Hong Kong!

[Noi657]

1st case found in Hong Kong!

I stand corrected... Negative

[wooloomooloo]

Amazing job by the missionaries.  I wouldn't wish what they do on my worst enemy but they do it. 

[Thaiberius]

In Hong Kong they have cute little nurses scanning all incoming passengers with some sort of temperature reading camera.

[MJP]

In Hong Kong they have cute little nurses scanning all incoming passengers with some sort of temperature reading camera.

 

They did at BKK during SARS.

[Kabula]

More and more healthcare workers here in Bangkok have recently been wearing surgical masks.

Of course it is flu season as well.

[chiang mai]

More and more healthcare workers here in Bangkok have recently been wearing surgical masks.

Of course it is flu season as well.

 

Except the Ebola virus is not airborne, it's spread through contact so masks don't really serve any purpose.

[Asiantravel]

UK border officials feel they are unprepared to deal with the threat of the Ebola virus arriving in Britain, a union leader has said.

 

speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight programme, the leader of the Immigration Service Union said her members were very concerned and did not know what they were supposed to do if they suspected the worst.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-officials-not-prepared-to-deal-with-ebola-arriving-at-border-union-leader-warns-9639106.html

[Guest]

Somehow I don't think Ebola will be a global thread at least at this point. Ebola has been in the news for decades coming and going. Now it has just spreaded a bit more than usual. 

 

This also means that the global knowledge of the virus increases, both in good and bad. Locally people know how to avoid to get infected and globally there are many instances who benefit of getting large news of this virus. 

 

There is lot's of questions about the virus. One way to get answers from the professionals is for example The Naked scientists show (BBC). They are currently looking for questions to be answered on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thenakedscientists/posts/10152765906355839

[MJP]

Ebola crisis: WHO to announce $100m emergency response
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28593987

[khounteen]

Looking at this http://healthmap.org/en/    

Would it be safer to go hide in my moo baan?

[MJP]

Ebola crisis: Infected aid worker heads to US

 

A hospital in Atlanta is preparing to receive a US aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28596416

[F430murci]

Ebola crisis: Infected aid worker heads to US
 
A hospital in Atlanta is preparing to receive a US aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28596416

This is troubling and interesting. Why bring here. Do we have some experimental medication? Am I insensitive and reading too much into this?

[chiang mai]

 

Ebola crisis: Infected aid worker heads to US
 
A hospital in Atlanta is preparing to receive a US aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28596416

This is troubling and interesting. Why bring here. Do we have some experimental medication? Am I insensitive and reading too much into this?

 

 

Yes you are. One train of thought might be that the US offers far better chances of patient care and survival, another is that its research facilities might be better able to find an antidote. To think other than those things might be considered malicious!

[MJP]

 

Ebola crisis: Infected aid worker heads to US
 
A hospital in Atlanta is preparing to receive a US aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28596416

This is troubling and interesting. Why bring here. Do we have some experimental medication? Am I insensitive and reading too much into this?

 

 

I think it's just so the poor soul gets the best care. They can handle infectious diseases like Ebola without spreading the virus.
 

[Asiantravel]

 Mainstream media  articles are making a point of insisting that Ebola is only transferred by physical contact with bodily fluids but this is not true, according to a doctor from the public health agency of Canada.

 

A study conducted in 2012 showed that Ebola was able to travel between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and were never placed in direct contact.

 

Though the method of transmission in the study was not officially determined, one of the scientists involved, Dr. Gary Kobinger, from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, told BBC News that he believed that the infection was spread through large droplets that were suspended in the air.

“What we suspect is happening is large droplets; they can stay in the air, but not long; they don’t go far,” he explained. “But they can be absorbed in the airway, and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way.”

 

 

http://mypharmacareers.com/pharmajournal/articles/ebola-virus-maybe-airborne.html

[F430murci]

 

Ebola crisis: Infected aid worker heads to US
 
A hospital in Atlanta is preparing to receive a US aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28596416

This is troubling and interesting. Why bring here. Do we have some experimental medication? Am I insensitive and reading too much into this?
 

 
I think it's just so the poor soul gets the best care. They can handle infectious diseases like Ebola without spreading the virus.
 

So they say, but we have not yet had to test our ability to contain something like Ebola.

My thought was more along the lines that perhaps CDC in Atlanta has some experimental antidote they need to try here in a place like Emory. Mother is a cancer specialist at Emory and I am very familiar with the research facilities at Emory and their connection with CDC.

Typical treatment for Ebola is something that could be administered anywhere. The doctor and others from US that contracted the virus not sent here, Perhaps CDC needed someone that very recently became exposed and symptomatic to try an antidote. Not sure I buy the this person get crazy special treatment at a massive costs just to administer IV hydration therapy and comfort meds.

[Asiantravel]

Ebola from Pigs to Monkeys

 

 

A deadly Ebola virus can spread from pigs to monkeys without direct contact, pointing to pig farms as a possible contributor to outbreaks.
 

 

Although Ebola viruses can cause fatal disease in humans and other primates, pigs can carry the infections with few ill effects. Now, Canadian scientists have shown that apparently healthy pigs can pass the deadliest species of Ebola to monkeys, even without ever coming into contact with them.

 

 

 

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33277/title/Ebola-from-Pigs-to-Monkeys/

 

[F430murci]

 Mainstream media  articles are making a point of insisting that Ebola is only transferred by physical contact with bodily fluids but this is not true, according to a doctor from the public health agency of Canada.
 
A study conducted in 2012 showed that Ebola was able to travel between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and were never placed in direct contact.
 
Though the method of transmission in the study was not officially determined, one of the scientists involved, Dr. Gary Kobinger, from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, told BBC News that he believed that the infection was spread through large droplets that were suspended in the air.
What we suspect is happening is large droplets; they can stay in the air, but not long; they dont go far, he explained. But they can be absorbed in the airway, and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way.
 
 
http://mypharmacareers.com/pharmajournal/articles/ebola-virus-maybe-airborne.html

Yeah, that was mentioned a page or so back about the Reston form possibly being airborne.

[Asiantravel]

 

 Mainstream media  articles are making a point of insisting that Ebola is only transferred by physical contact with bodily fluids but this is not true, according to a doctor from the public health agency of Canada.
 
A study conducted in 2012 showed that Ebola was able to travel between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and were never placed in direct contact.
 
Though the method of transmission in the study was not officially determined, one of the scientists involved, Dr. Gary Kobinger, from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, told BBC News that he believed that the infection was spread through large droplets that were suspended in the air.
What we suspect is happening is large droplets; they can stay in the air, but not long; they dont go far, he explained. But they can be absorbed in the airway, and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way.
 
 
http://mypharmacareers.com/pharmajournal/articles/ebola-virus-maybe-airborne.html

Yeah, that was mentioned a page or so back about the Reston form possibly being airborne.

 

 

 

 But this has nothing to do with Reston and Dr. Gary Kobinger wasnt talking about Reston either.  In fact this more recent outbreak  is a new strain of Ebola altogether.

 

Ebola Virus In Africa Outbreak Is A New Strain

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/ebola-africa-new-strain_n_5162354.html

[Mosha]

Oh, and it is also sexually transmitted.   

 

That's me safe them