The world is not a safe place. (the truth will set you free?)
The advent of modern transportation with thousands of people travelling around the world in a matter of hours increases the importance of isolating and containing diseases such as Ebola. Prevention is less expensive, and treatment on site at the origin of the endemic outbreak is essential.
In areas where endemics occur the population density and the prevalence of the infection increases the liklihood of spread to other locations.
The outbreak of Ebola is a mere test of our CDC's control methods. Far worse could be forthcoming. Politicians are making decisions without accepting recommendations from public health scientists and authorities. Could they be correct ? The Governors of New York, New Jersey and others have correctly used their authority to protect the public health.
As usual our government reacts slowly.
The major effect has been for health workers returning from West Africa. Health officials have emphasized repeatedly that direct contact with secretions is required for transmission to non-infected individuals.
This week's NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) has several articles regarding Ebola, regarding diagnosis, treatment and isolation measures.
Ebola in the United States: EHRs as a Public Health Tool at the Point of Care
Ebola and our fragile health system
Despite repeated assurance by the CDC that the transmission of Ebola Virus is not airborne, there are recent articles which report vomitting produces a spray pattern, and protective measures to prevent spread of Ebola Virus.
Ebola Virus Disease and the need for New Personal Protective Equipment.
Numbers below are time tags and contents of video:
0:00 Introduction to viruses
1:20 Virus anatomy
2:35 Hemorragic fever in Angola (Ebola)
2:56 WHO and GOERM
3:15 WHO and world wide monitoring
8:25 Infection control and prevention in underdeveloped countries
11:54 CDC
12:00 Biological containment and isolation methods
13:15 Ebola, Marburg virus have no treatments or vaccines.
25:00 Virology, methodology for research
33:00 Viral Vectors and origins, zoonoses, West Nile Virus
36:00 Threat of bioterrorism
41:00 Limited resources, requiring large volunteer efforts in Africa and elsewere.
45:00 Previous lessons from HIV (25% of Africans had HIV virus leading to AIDS)
Ebola Virus Outbreak 2014 - WARNING
Ebola is named for a river in the Congo where virus first appeared in 1976.
This video is from an active Ebola facility in Western Africa and explains the isolation and containment methods used.
22:23 Health worker evacuation to U.S for treatment.
Experimental Treatment: ZMAPP
Q: What is this drug?
A: Called ZMapp, it is a cocktail of specially engineered antibodies designed to target and inactivate the Ebola virus.
Q: What do we know about whether it works?
A: Very little. Various antibodies have been tested in small numbers of monkeys, but not people. In one study, 43 percent of treated monkeys survived when the drug was given after the animals showed symptoms.
Mapp Biopharmaceutical now is developing a combination of three antibodies that seemed most promising in those animal studies.
Ebola - What You're Not Being Told according to reports from Scientific Reports;
Are you as confused as I am? My education and training in medicine should make me able to discern fact from fiction.
Here are opposing views:
Here are opposing views:
You'll notice if you read virtually any mainstream article on the topic that they make a point of insisting that Ebola is only transferred by physical contact with bodily fluids. This is not true, at all.
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."
Translation: Ebola IS an airborne virus. (as is annotated in the video and below, I am using this term in the layman's sense as TRAVELS THROUGH AIR)
Someone pointed out that in medical terms, if the virus is transferred through tiny droplets in the air this would technically not be called an "airborne virus". Airborne, in medical terms would mean that the virus has the ability to stay alive without a liquid carrier. On one hand this is a question of semantics, and the point is well taken, but keep in mind that the study did not officially determine how the virus traveled through the air, it merely established that it does travel through the air. Doctor Kobinger's hypothesis regarding droplets of liquid is just that, a hypothesis. For the average person however what needs to be understood is very simple: if you are in a room with someone infected with Ebola, you are not safe, even if you never touch them or their bodily fluids, and this is not what you are being told by the mainstream media. Essentially I am using the word "airborne" as a layman term.
The AP's spin on it:
Experts say people infected with Ebola can spread the disease only through their bodily fluids and after they show symptoms.
From CNN:
Ebola spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people.
And from the BBC itself in their article describing the second confirmed case in Nigeria:
The virus spreads by contact with infected blood and bodily fluids - and touching the body of someone who has died of Ebola is particularly dangerous.
To make matters worse, there is something very, very important that the corporate media and public health officials are not telling you regarding this crisis.
You'll notice if you read virtually any mainstream article on the topic that they make a point of insisting that Ebola is only transferred by physical contact with bodily fluids. This is not true, at all.
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