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Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa: ''totally out of control"

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by KingCheetah, Jun 22, 2014.

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  1. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    Obama told the United Nations on Thursday that there was “still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be.” Faster action is desperately needed to prevent hundreds of thousands or even a million deaths.
    _____

    Losing the Race Against Ebola

    The race to control the expanding Ebola epidemic in West Africa looks increasingly dire. Official projections of how fast the virus will spread have soared while pledges of help from advanced nations and global organizations have failed to keep pace.

    On Sept. 22, the World Health Organization published estimates indicating that the epidemic could infect more than 20,000 people in the three hardest hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by early November, months before earlier estimates. Unless new measures can turn the tide, the number of cases and deaths could increase by thousands per week for months to come. It is possible that the virus will become permanently lodged in the West African population, posing a continuing threat of dispersal to the rest of Africa and other parts of the world.

    On Sept 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta issued in a worst-case projection, based on computer models, showing that Sierra Leone and Liberia may have 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps spreading without effective containment. A best-case scenario showed that the epidemic could be brought to an end if 70 percent of the patients were treated in settings like isolation wards that reduce the risk of disease transmission and if burials were performed safely. Currently, only about 18 percent of the patients in Liberia and 40 percent in Sierra Leone are in such settings.

    link
     
    #201 KingCheetah, Sep 27, 2014
  2. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Think of when this thread started and how relatively easy it would have been to stop at that point.
     
    #202 B-Bob, Sep 27, 2014
  3. KingCheetah

    KingCheetah Contributing Member

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    More attention from CFnet than the folks in charge of such things.
     
    #203 KingCheetah, Sep 27, 2014
  4. Mr. Brightside

    Mr. Brightside Contributing Member

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    Ebola is serious business, but we convinced this foreign guy at work that Ebola is pronounced the same way Ricola (is in the commercials). He went around saying that for a week until he was corrected by this HR person with no sense of humor.
     
    #204 Mr. Brightside, Sep 27, 2014
  5. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    Time to quarantine africa? what if it hits a more densely populated continent like europe? The number of death could by much larger.
     
    #205 Air Langhi, Sep 27, 2014
  6. supdudes

    supdudes Member

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    There are monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs) that have been shown to cure ebola.

    However I think they won't be used in Africa for at least awhile, due to political and scientific reasons.
     
    #206 supdudes, Sep 27, 2014
  7. Buck Turgidson

    Buck Turgidson Member

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    In a 1st world situation with proper law and order and medical facilities it would be relatively easy to contain.
     
    #207 Buck Turgidson, Sep 27, 2014
  8. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    True for the main strain, friend.
    The big worry for the globe is mutation. The longer you let a sloppy virus like this one go human to human the longer we roll the dice.
     
    #208 B-Bob, Sep 28, 2014
  9. Harrisment

    Harrisment Member

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    Is that very common though? The most well known virus I can think of that is transmitted via bodily fluids is HIV. Was there ever any fear that it would mutate to an airborne form?
     
    #209 Harrisment, Sep 28, 2014
  10. Dave_78

    Dave_78 Member

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    I believe the difference is how "sloppy" ebola is as it reproduces. It tends to mutate more than typical viruses and the more mutations the more likely one of those mutations allows for it to survive in the air long enough to reach a new host that way.

    Think about how fast the flu spreads in densely populated areas and now give the flu and 70% mortality rate. The scariest part is that this thing could go airborne and we might not even know for days or weeks and by then it could be well on its way to being nearly everywhere.
     
    #210 Dave_78, Sep 28, 2014
  11. Major

    Major Member

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    In addition to the airborne option, I think the other fear is if it becomes transmittable prior to symptoms during the incubation stage. It becomes much harder to contain at that point - one of the good things about Ebola has been that it's such a "stupid" virus: it's hard to transmit, it doesn't spread until you're symptomatic, and it kills so quickly. Any of those things changing makes it more deadly.
     
    #211 Major, Sep 28, 2014
  12. Dave_78

    Dave_78 Member

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    So I probably exaggerated about it being "well on its way to nearly everywhere" but it is mutating rapidly and no one seems to be keeping an eye on what those mutations are doing to the virus.


    "Dr. James Le Duc, the director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas, said the problem is that no one is keeping track of the mutations happening across West Africa, so no one really knows what the virus has become.

    One group of researchers looked at how Ebola changed over a short period of time in just one area in Sierra Leone early on in the outbreak, before it was spreading as fast as it is now. They found more than 300 genetic changes in the virus."


    http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/12/health/ebola-airborne/
     
    #212 Dave_78, Sep 28, 2014
  13. Dave_78

    Dave_78 Member

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    #213 Dave_78, Sep 29, 2014
  14. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    No, because there are deadly communicable diseases on every continent and they rarely infect all billion of their citizens.
     
    #214 Dairy Ashford, Sep 29, 2014
  15. TheRealist137

    TheRealist137 Member

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    #215 TheRealist137, Sep 30, 2014
  16. opticon

    opticon Member

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    The case in Dallas was confirmed. Yikes
     
    #216 opticon, Sep 30, 2014
  17. davidio840

    davidio840 Contributing Member

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    Damn that is a bit scary. I certainly am not opposed to closing Dallas off to the rest of the world.
     
    #217 davidio840, Sep 30, 2014
  18. RedRedemption

    RedRedemption Contributing Member

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    They just have to not botch up the quarantine and it'll be fine. We're not Africa.
     
    #218 RedRedemption, Sep 30, 2014
  19. Moleb

    Moleb Member

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    And I told you'll in the first pages
     
    #219 Moleb, Sep 30, 2014
  20. 713

    713 Member

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    [​IMG]
     
    #220 713, Sep 30, 2014
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