ebola virus

[asrlem]

I heard that in Africa some people released people with Ebola out of quarantine and now thousands of people have it. How do you feel about the safety of the world. Do you believe there will be another large outbreak like the black death or will it be minor and they will get re quarantined and the virus will go away?

[HUSTLEMAN]

I don't know how this is going to go but it will get worse before this ends. Hope that this doesn't turn into anything like the black plauge because if this sucker goes hlobal it'll make the 1919 flu pandemic look like the common cold.

[ksdnfkfr]

My dad says every few years there's a new pandemic panic. He said a few years ago there was some bird flu virus everyone went on and on about.

[jayjay's toocool]

My dad says every few years there's a new pandemic panic. He said a few years ago there was some bird flu virus everyone went on and on about.

Both ebola and bird flu have killed many people in africa. You say this as if you didnt know about the bird flu.... if you didnt here in America we did.... and lost others because of it. Ebola has killed almost half of its victims, which is in the thousands.... so yes when a contagious disease is international and deadly, people freak out.

To the thread maker You're a few months late this has been an issue fot a while and it has spread alot of places and killed plenty of people (including doctors) internationally. We are now isolating and containing this virus

[ksdnfkfr]

Both ebola and bird flu have killed many people in africa. You say this as if you didnt know about the bird flu.... if you didnt here in America we did.... and lost others because of it. Ebola has killed almost half of its victims, which is in the thousands.... so yes when a contagious disease is international and deadly, people freak out.

To the thread maker You're a few months late this has been an issue fot a while and it has spread alot of places and killed plenty of people (including doctors) internationally. We are now isolating and containing this virus

Not meaning to gloss it over, but my guess is that more people have died in car accidents this year. If I'm going to start getting scared of getting ebola, I might as well get even more scared of being in the car.

[jayjay's toocool]

Not meaning to gloss it over, but my guess is that more people have died in car accidents this year. If I'm going to start getting scared of getting ebola, I might as well get even more scared of being in the car.

Hey infectious is infectious the black death only killed one person to start with. But more than that peoples heart go out to those who cant prevent this, THAT is Americas reason for caring

[Lovelife090994]

There is technically no cure for the Bubonic Plague yet few get it today due to hygiene. But if you get it, you are very likely to die a slow painful death or if lucky slip into a coma first.

[James Dean]

Yes it's called the flu (influenza) and it kills people everyday. Nobody wants to get a flu shot. I can see both sides of the issue.

[Miserabilia]

Unless it slips through the wests's paranoid security system it won't cause outbreak here. The moment someone's suspected to have it they are in hostpial quarentine.

[Gamma Male]

It is a threat to African countries in the outbreak area, and it needs to be dealt with there immediately. But it isn't really a threat to other continents, especially not North America.


Although coincidentally enough Ebola is what I named my virus in pandemic last time I played. I finally won and unlocked the fungus disease type. Wiped out the entire world.

[Stronk Serb]

The thing with Ebola is that it spreads slower than it kills. That means that tge outbreaks are going to take a lot of lives but they will stop by themselves because all the infected will die.

[Teratos]

The thing with Ebola is that it spreads slower than it kills. That means that tge outbreaks are going to take a lot of lives but they will stop by themselves because all the infected will die.

I'm afraid that's not correct. (Otherwise, how would the outbreak ever have been started in the first place, if the first cases died before they could spread?)

There's a very interesting number that epidemiologists use (the people who study the spread of disease, often doctors). It's called the basic reproductive numberr, or the R-zero for short. That number is the number of secondary infections one infected person is likely to cause. That is, the number of other people an infected person will typically infect.

If the R-zero is 1, it means one infected person will typically infect one other person while they have the disease. This means the disease will continue along indefinitely.

If the R-zero is bigger than 1, it means one infected person will typically infect more than one person, so the outbreak will grow.

Likewise, if the R-zero is less than one, than the not every infected person will infect someone and the outbreak will start dying down.


The R-zero for seasonal influenza (mentioned on this thread), is roughly 1.3. That means if you have, say, 1000 people with the flu, they have the potential to infect 1300 people, and the infection will spread.

The R-zero for ebola is about 1.8-2, which means that a person with ebola may infect up to two other people.

Now this isn't all doom and gloom, the R-zero is based on there being no treatment used. The major treatment used in ebola is isolation, which takes people out of circulation and prevents other people from coming into contact with them, thus hopefully stopping the spread of the disease.

There's also another factor which the keen amongst you may have noticed - the seasonal flu dies out every year, despite having a R-zero of greater than one. This is because there's the fact that the reproductive number falls over time (a time sensitive factor called Rt). This happens because people who are exposed but don’t die gain immunity, so they can’t be reinfected. Eventually so many people have been exposed to a disease that the outbreak simply stops, like a forest fire that runs out of fuel. So it will not continue indefinitely.



Ebola is a very scary, ugly disease. It's scary because it's easily transmissible (though not as easy as the flu), and it's highly lethal (it kills 90% of its victims without treatment, in Africa now the rate is somewhere between 50-70%). It's also a very painful, scary and messy way to die. There is also no cure or vaccine developed yet, so treatment is supportive - that means, doctors try their best to prop up people's organ systems and give the body as much time as possible to develop immunity to the disease.

There are many reasons it spread so fast in Africa. The first is that their healthcare systems are not as advanced as those in the west, - they are under resourced and overcrowded. Then there's the fact that a lot of the people affected live in close quarters, with poor sanitation, which enables infection to spread easily. Thirdly, there's some cultural differences - for instance when someone passes away in African culture, the normal thing for a family to do is wash and kiss the body before burying them. That's a major problem because ebola is still highly contagious after killing someone.

Finally, there's the fact that quite a few number of Africans are suspicious of western medicine, and that's completely understandable. Big pharma has done some horrible things to the continent in the past, so a lot of trust has been lost. I daresay if strange foreign doctors wearing spacesuits came to take your dead mother away and told you that you couldn't give her a proper funeral, you might get a bit angry too.

All that said, there is a decent chance that as this epidemic grows it will make it to the west. However, the west is far more prepared to deal with Ebola than the poor, underresourced hospitals in Africa that are struggling to cope. Any cases that make it over will nearly certainly be quarantined very quickly.

[Vlerchan]

The R-zero for ebola is about 1.8-2, which means that a person with ebola may infect up to two other people.
I presume you're using this source or a source like this, which only analysis Central Africa (http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/29/some-good-news-about-ebola-it-wont-spread-nearly-as-fast-as-other-epidemics/). I would presume that if we're deriving such a figure from just the empirical evidence on-hand from Africa then it's going to be significantly distorted as a result of their poorer water, waste, etc. infrastructure, and the current overextension of the affected-countries weak medical infrastructure means that many people have to be treated at home (http://www.popsci.com/article/science/africa-ebola-patients-need-more-medicine), allows Ebola to transmit as fast as it does.

Corrected for Europe, and the first world in general, I'd imagine this R-zero figure would be much lower.

---

I also didn't realise I was repeating you until I finished typing the above. It strikes me as strange though that you'd throw around the (R-zero) figures you did if you actually seem to understand the gulfing differences between the differences between the situation in Africa and the potential situation in Europe.

It's scary because it's easily transmissible.
When an infection does occur in humans, the virus can be spread in several ways to others. Ebola is spread through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with:

blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, feces, vomit, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola
objects (like needles and syringes) that have been contaminated with the virus
infected animals
Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, food. However, in Africa, Ebola may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/

Do you see why this would be a bigger problem in a developing country?

And how it's actually not that easily transmissible?

[CosmicNoodle]

My dad says every few years there's a new pandemic panic. He said a few years ago there was some bird flu virus everyone went on and on about.

Don't you remember Bird Flu?

Ye, this is like Bird Flu, everyone will rave about it, it'll run ramage in 3rd world places but as soo n as it starts to hit the develpoed world it'll be eradicated from the face of the earth.

[JamesSuperBoy]

Sad all round the poorest countries over a thousand dead - and over 3000 children orphaned - there is no cure only containment.

[asrlem]

So what you are saying is that as soon as it reaches the eastern or western medicine it will be eradicated because they have stronger medicines and are more well developed than Africa

[James Dean]

So what you are saying is that as soon as it reaches the eastern or western medicine it will be eradicated because they have stronger medicines and are more well developed than Africa

That's half of it. We also live in a cleaner environment. We bathe, have fresh drinking water. Our wildlife and environment is cared better.

We do have better medical care though than being in a third world area. However it doesn't mean that we still couldn't be wiped out by it. Hospitals are only so big, medical research cost money that still even living in this country, we don't have much of.

[Jean Poutine]

Since ebola really only transmits through close contact with infected fluids (mostly blood), it's really not all that dangerous for us here in the West where someone bleeding from every orifice and vomiting massive amounts of blood everywhere would be very quickly noticed and quarantined.

It's really just more typical media paranoia.

More dangerous would be a weaponized version of the virus that could spread through the air. Some sources are saying this already exists.

[Miserabilia]

Since ebola really only transmits through close contact with infected fluids (mostly blood), it's really not all that dangerous for us here in the West where someone bleeding from every orifice and vomiting massive amounts of blood everywhere would be very quickly noticed and quarantined.

It's really just more typical media paranoia.

More dangerous would be a weaponized version of the virus that could spread through the air. Some sources are saying this already exists.

I've heard a lot of rumours of "airborne ebola" new virus spreading, but it has no legitimate conformation and it sounds like paranoia to me.
It would be very likely for the same ebola to develop this quickly and easily to be airborne.

[Ben_Frost]

There is technically no cure for the Bubonic Plague yet few get it today due to hygiene. But if you get it, you are very likely to die a slow painful death or if lucky slip into a coma first.

With the development of antibiotics that deal with Gram negative bacteria, Bubonic plague's no longer a serious threat.

Unless it slips through the wests's paranoid security system it won't cause outbreak here. The moment someone's suspected to have it they are in hostpial quarentine.

In fact I'm surprised one case slipped by them, still I'm quite sure it won't spread much because of this.

I'm afraid that's not correct. (Otherwise, how would the outbreak ever have been started in the first place, if the first cases died before they could spread?)




Now this isn't all doom and gloom, the R-zero is based on there being no treatment used. The major treatment used in ebola is isolation, which takes people out of circulation and prevents other people from coming into contact with them, thus hopefully stopping the spread of the disease.

Ebola is a very scary, ugly disease. It's scary because it's easily transmissible (though not as easy as the flu), and it's highly lethal (it kills 90% of its victims without treatment, in Africa now the rate is somewhere between 50-70%). It's also a very painful, scary and messy way to die. There is also no cure or vaccine developed yet, so treatment is supportive - that means, doctors try their best to prop up people's organ systems and give the body as much time as possible to develop immunity to the disease.

There are many reasons it spread so fast in Africa. The first is that their healthcare systems are not as advanced as those in the west, - they are under resourced and overcrowded. Then there's the fact that a lot of the people affected live in close quarters, with poor sanitation, which enables infection to spread easily. Thirdly, there's some cultural differences - for instance when someone passes away in African culture, the normal thing for a family to do is wash and kiss the body before burying them. That's a major problem because ebola is still highly contagious after killing someone.

Finally, there's the fact that quite a few number of Africans are suspicious of western medicine, and that's completely understandable. Big pharma has done some horrible things to the continent in the past, so a lot of trust has been lost. I daresay if strange foreign doctors wearing spacesuits came to take your dead mother away and told you that you couldn't give her a proper funeral, you might get a bit angry too.

All that said, there is a decent chance that as this epidemic grows it will make it to the west. However, the west is far more prepared to deal with Ebola than the poor, underresourced hospitals in Africa that are struggling to cope. Any cases that make it over will nearly certainly be quarantined very quickly.



Corrected for Europe, and the first world in general, I'd imagine this R-zero figure would be much lower.

---


When an infection does occur in humans, the virus can be spread in several ways to others. Ebola is spread through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with:

blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, feces, vomit, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola
objects (like needles and syringes) that have been contaminated with the virus
infected animals
Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, food. However, in Africa, Ebola may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/

Do you see why this would be a bigger problem in a developing country?

And how it's actually not that easily transmissible?

Sad all round the poorest countries over a thousand dead - and over 3000 children orphaned - there is no cure only containment.

And that is the reason it may not cause so much trouble on an advanced nation such as the States, let's just hope their preventive health care system can either prevent it from spreading from this individual case, or hold it out enough for all the new patients to recover or die, or enough for the hospital network to get their resources ready for the rush of new patients that will come in after this case.

So what you are saying is that as soon as it reaches the eastern or western medicine it will be eradicated because they have stronger medicines and are more well developed than Africa

It may not be erradicated, but at least there will be a much easier control of the disease.

.

More dangerous would be a weaponized version of the virus that could spread through the air. Some sources are saying this already exists.

While potentially possible, there are still no reports of such a strain existing and hopefully there won't be for a long time.

[DeadEyes]

The pandemic is coming!

Even the FOX & friends are infected! Take shelter!

Posts merged. Please do not double post. ~Typhlosion.

[dakeep18]

i feel like if this isn't controlled a true global crisis could occur

[DeadEyes]

i feel like if this isn't controlled a true global crisis could occur

I believe a true global crisis will eventually occur, it always come close to get out of control and it eventually will. Sci-fi tend to become reality at some point.

[Cpt_Cutter]

Ebola as a virus is bad, yes. It is one of the most deadly diseases known to mankind. Having said this, anyone who seriously believes that it will end the world/kill millions in the west/crumble modern society is kind-of an idiot. If worst comes to worst then quarantine effectively cuts off the only transmission vector, though this has been explained above in much better form.

TL;DR It's a pretty shit time to be a West-African, but everyone else is just scaremongering/being scaremongered (Is that a word?)

[SethfromMI]

I kind of said this another post. it should be something we are keeping our eye on and preparing for, but it is not something you should let ruin your life of being in fear over

[DeadEyes]

I kind of said this another post. it should be something we are keeping our eye on and preparing for, but it is not something you should let ruin your life of being in fear over

Agreed.

Ebola as a virus is bad, yes. It is one of the most deadly diseases known to mankind. Having said this, anyone who seriously believes that it will end the world/kill millions in the west/crumble modern society is kind-of an idiot.

I must admit the chances of it happening are scarce so there's no point panicking about it.

[Batman42]

I think we will be fine

[fairmaiden]

We'll be fine (I hope). I don't think there is any impending doom on the world atm; epidemics come and go, and I don't know if this is true but I think the amount of new Ebola cases are going down. Nigeria and another African country have conquered the virus, however I'm unsure about the remaining affected countries.

[phuckphace]

http://i.imgur.com/bsAJ2Qf.jpg

[Hortcoke]

https://38.media.tumblr.com/466e980397a310b978f23ff8070d132c/tumblr_nfvnfjQO8w1r4c851o1_500.jpg

Is not as bad as it seems, is even much easier to contain the influenza AH1N1. Keep calm :)