Ebola Virus

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

It was brought up that ISIS is planning to use the ebola virus to infect the western world. An infected person could board an airplane without any problem unless they were showing symptoms and were in an area of northern Africa. So an infected person could get by security when they land and infect others on purpose in almost anyplace in the world.

Recently, ISIS has been killing everyone that doesn't believe what they believe. This weekend ISIS beheaded many people and piked their heads for all to witness. ISIS is an al qaeda faction.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Scary stuff this Ebola.
One of the Samaritans purse doctors just contracted it too in Africa working in a relief hospital. He is being treated but how awful.

I am glad I am retired from nursing but if this became epidemic I could see having to go back to public health again.


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[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Ebola sickens and kills too quickly for it to become a useful weapon against the West. Countries with adequate money and governance implement a rapid system of isolation (quarantine) which quickly and easily stops Ebola in its tracks. That is why recent outbreaks have died out so quickly.

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

Some of the differences of this new strain of ebola is the incubation period which can extend to over three weeks before a person develops symptoms. All a terrorist needs to do is hang out with infected people and then make it to another country without showing symptoms.

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

The infection is spread by direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, saliva or sweat. It can't be spread through casual contact or breathing in the same air.

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

idk, but if a doctor wearing protective gear caught the virus using all of the precautions it would seem that ebola has mutated to a be an aggressive virus. Ebola is now being reported by fema at the southern US border.

http://dailyleak.org/2014/07/epidemi...s-from-mexico/

On Monday, FEMA reported cases of the Ebola virus appearing along the southern borders of New Mexico and Texas. The virus could have easily traveled through Mexico to the US through infected travelers, says Dave Shilling, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Arizona.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsod...rts-first-case

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

(Dr) Sheik Umar Khan was working in the far north of Sierra Leone and heading a clinic where he reportedly treated 100 Ebola patients. All health workers in under-funded and poorly resourced locations are at risk. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are struggling to deal with the most recent outbreak which has a fatality rate of about 60 per cent, although the disease can kill up to 90 per cent of those who catch it.

America will have no difficulty in dealing with outbreaks. From your newspaper article -

http://dailyleak.org/2014/07/epidemi...s-from-mexico/

In a quick response FEMA quarantined the small town of Salineno, Texas until further notice and warned that outbreaks in the US may happen again but would not be difficult to contain.

The heading of your newspaper article is designed to promote fear, loathing and racism imo. Just imagine the backlash if the heading read "Epidemic Due To American Faith Based Health Workers? The Ebola Virus Has Spread To The US From (Sierra Leone/Liberia/Guinea) . HEALTH WORKERS BRING MORE THAN ANYONE BARGAINED FOR.

Chronology of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreaks
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resourc...html#thirtytwo

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

You may be right Carol. In this article from politfact it says that there has never been a case of ebola outside of Africa.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-bringing-ebo/

William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, agreed. "The congressman is misinformed," he said. "There is no Ebola in the Western Hemisphere."

We also checked whether it was plausible for a child or adult entering the United States from Central America via Mexico to be infected with the Ebola virus. CDC scientists call it "extremely unlikely," DeNoon said.

Even so, a virus like ebola is thought by many in the security sector to be a biological weapon of choice for extremists. Boko Harem is one such extremist muslim faction that is in the vicinity of the outbreaks in Africa. The ebola outbreak in western Africa doesn't meet the parameters of other ebola outbreaks which have always started in the jungles with indigenous populations before spreading else where. This outbreak differs as it arrived in three separate cities at the same time. So these outbreaks are unusual in this regard. It is almost as if some one planted the virus in these populations. The outbreak in west Africa is reverse of the usual way this virus is usually transmitted in that it has started in the major populations instead of the usual sparsely populated jungle.

My point is that it would be some what easy for an infected person to travel outside of containment areas to deliberately infect other populations. Easier to do this than to bring a bomb on an airplane.

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

My point is that it would be some what easy for an infected person to travel outside of containment areas to deliberately infect other populations. Easier to do this than to bring a bomb on an airplane.

I can see your concerns but it would be a clumsy, expensive and ineffective terrorist act. Individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious. A terrorist who becomes symptomatic would have a very short period of time to act before becoming too ill. The disease is initially characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Given the virus is transmitted via bodily fluids entering the mucous membranes or cuts, what would the terrorist do ... run around passionately kissing people in the streets?

This article discusses the disease and answers many questions. It also talks about the global health community operations -

CDC Telebriefing on Ebola outbreak in West Africa
Monday, July 28, 2014, 2:30 p.m. ET
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/t0728-ebola.html

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Why is Ebola so difficult to control in some communities?

This article hi-lights some of the difficulties faced by governments and health workers trying to contain Ebola in West Africa.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/828197

CONAKRY, Guinea/KENEMA, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Governments and health agencies trying to contain the world's deadliest ever Ebola epidemic in West Africa fear the contagion could be worse than reported because suspicious locals are chasing away health workers and shunning treatment.

From Guinea, where the four-month-old outbreak claimed the first of more than 500 lives, to Sierra Leone, scores of patients are hiding away, believing hospitalization is a "death sentence".

In Guinea's southeastern Forest Region some terrified villagers are shutting off their communities to medical workers, even blocking roads and downing bridges.

Over the border in Liberia's Lofa County, health workers trying to screen two communities for the deadly disease were chased off by locals armed with cutlasses, knives and stones, according to an internal U.N. report seen by Reuters.

In eastern Sierra Leone, police had to fire tear gas to stop relatives trying to recover bodies of Ebola victims for family burial - a serious contagion risk - amid popular suspicions the cadavers might be used for experiments or macabre rituals.

"We are seeing a lot of mistrust, intimidation and hostility from part of the population," Marc Poncin, emergency coordinator for medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Guinea, told Reuters.

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

I can see your concerns but it would be a clumsy, expensive and ineffective terrorist act. Individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious. A terrorist who becomes symptomatic would have a very short period of time to act before becoming too ill.

Because of the incubation period of up to three weeks before a person is symptomatic an infected person could easily travel to many destinations and get sick in a crowded place. I wonder why it is that ebola isn't spread by coughing or sneezing ? It seems that body fluids like diarrhea, blood and vomit are the main culprits.


Ebola is spreading and according to some reports is as infectious as influenza.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...dly-virus.html

Dr Derek Gatherer of the University of Lancaster has warned of a global pandemic, claiming the virus is as infectious as flu.
He warned each person infected with the disease could spread the virus to at least two other people, adding that the panic sparked by the death of Mr Sawyer in Lagos, is justified.
'Anyone on the same plane could have become infected because Ebola is easy to catch,' he said.
'It can be passed on through vomiting, diarrhoea or even from simply saliva or sweat - as well as being sexually transmitted.
'That is why there is such alarm over Mr Sawyer because he became ill on the flight so anyone else sharing the plane could have been infected by his vomit or other bodily fluids.'

I just read that the woman in Hong Kong tested negative for ebola.

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

It looks like a possible ebola quarantine in north carolina at an emergency room.

http://m.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/...ng-test/ngq2K/

[Brogers92026 Member Find all posts View Profile Close Brogers92026]

(Dr) Sheik Umar Khan was working in the far north of Sierra Leone and heading a clinic where he reportedly treated 100 Ebola patients. ...
America will have no difficulty in dealing with outbreaks. From your newspaper article -

http://dailyleak.org/2014/07/epidemi...s-from-mexico/


...

Chronology of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreaks
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resourc...html#thirtytwo

On the evening news last night a "cheerleader" doctor said that with medication and proper hydration that the survival rate is high and she didn't think that it was a big deal at all. I was skeptical. Even more so when I learned that one of the infected doctors, Sheik Umar Khan, is reported to have died yesterday.

[CarolF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CarolF]

Because of the incubation period of up to three weeks before a person is symptomatic an infected person could easily travel to many destinations and get sick in a crowded place.

I think that is a given. New deadly communicable illnesses are developing all the time and international travellers do move them around the world. Western countries are on standby and ready to act.

I'm not familiar with the term "cheerleader" doctor but I wouldn't call a fatality rate of >60% "no big deal". I'm personally find it difficult to decide which disease is the scariest - MERS which may have become airborne, Bubonic Plague, one of the worlds most deadly and we aren't practised at diagnosing cases or the newly discovered H10N8 Avian Flu with real pandemic potential.

[easyrider Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close easyrider]

I might have to wear a mask and gloves while traveling like the Japanese do.

I recently read that Puerto Rico is now epidemic with chikungunya virus. Im not sure why 200 cases is considered epedemic.

http://rt.com/usa/173948-chikungunya...rico-epidemic/