Ebola scaremongering?

Meridian said:
So, it's OK for lots of black folk to die, as long as no white folk get it. In countries which can deal with the disease. Out of interest, how many black people can we trade for one white death?
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No, this wasn't my point.
Aid hasn't saved that many people, given that there was until recently, no cure, and basically no treatment bar fluids and 'hope' someone recovers.

During the 70s and 80s these outbreaks burnt out in villages, and were found after the event, now we rush in to help, mobilise, spread, send people into regions where they are inadequately protected, and then if they get sick, we ship them home for further treatment.

If it was a different strain, or a Spanish 'flu or a proper avian mixture, and we follow the same pattern, we'll damn the country, and the rest of the world with such behaviour in the name of 'aid'.

You close off, you isolate, you contain, then you treat.
Its what was done to the Ebola guy who came home here, spacesuits treated him until he was better. If you are going to try it anywhere, you should do it the same way.
Lack of resources isn't an excuse to spread infection. You contain it first. Then you treat it, if you can.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Maybe we should suggest the countries involved close their borders to anyone leaving, and then let the outbreak burn itself out, like we should have done six months ago, instead of rushing in to help and spreading the damn thing everywhere.
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Agree, it's called quarantine, why are these "doctors" spreading this disease so carelessly? Stop flying over to Africa, catching it and bringing it back here.
 
Mynight said:
To be fair if there was a disease that hit us rather than them I imagine the reaction would be similar. I don't imagine them jumping to our rescue(not saying that's ok).
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Agreed, Mad cow disease, British beef. It wasn't allowed out of the country. It was contained. It wasn't being racist to all those black and white cows, neither the black nor the white bit of them.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
No, this wasn't my point.
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But that's the result. Why can't volunteers help? The irony of this thread is that it's called "Ebola Scaremongering?", and you are doing exactly that. The disease is very unpleasant, and that's why everyone loves it - from a distance. But it's barely contagious unless you come in direct contact with extruded body fluids of someone showing the symptoms. Are you planning on working with victims? Are you not wearing PPE? Then, and only then, are you are risk.

The fact is, Western medical people can help with little risk to themsleves, and all but none to you - you are far far more likely to be struck by lightning twice in row than to catch Ebola. But that's not much of a story. And are you really saying that if this was happening in this country, you'd be happy for (say) the US to close all borders off and let us die? And if some Africans volunteered to help - because yes, they would - you'd be happy for them to be turned away.

It's certainly not about racism, but equally racism is involved in many of the responses here.
 
I disagree with your suggestion regarding the lightning. Three western aid workers have caught ebola. There are not that many of them in the country, certainly much less than have been hit by lightning once, let alone twice.
120 died from it just yesterday, and as many mught die today.
There are little to no steps being taken to contain the infection locally, freedom of travel persists. They need to start doing sonething.
 
The only reason Ebola has all of a sudden got important is because white western people started contracting it. Africans have been dealing with this for decades and no one gave a ****.
 
D.P. said:
The Ebola virus has a fatality rate of 90%. It is hard not to be scared of such a lethal virus.
To put things in perspective the Spanish Flu pandemic had a 10% fatality rate.

In today's connected world some truly unthinkable pandemics could arise. People tend to believe that modern technology and medicine will resolve these issues but the truth is we've made little progress since the Spanish flu. Yeah, we can discover the genetic sequence but that won't immediately allow us to create an anti-virus.
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I think it's at around 50% in poor malnourished places in Africa.

We shall see isolated cases in Europe and America with doctors and for want of a better word 'idiot' backpackers bringing back these diseases from the areas. But not on any scale as we could easily ramp up the treatment centres to isolate (most hospitals would already have an isolation ward and be able to quickly expand it). I'm sure this has been the case since swine flu bird flu.

So while yes I'm concerned that some eejit I know brings it back I'm not overly worried about it.


It's still pretty hard to catch but fear and scaremongering mean that doctors who would usually go to help in these places aren't going thus it's a problem for those poor people living there.

Also doesn't help when doctors going to educate villages are being chased out of town by the locals.
 
The reason this outbreak is receiving so much attention is we have spread it, it hasn't stayed localised and burned itself out. This virus has the potential to decimate the entire human population if we allow it to spread. Anywhere there is the virus should be quarantined until the outbreak is over. Bringing infected aid workers back to major cities is just plain stupid, why would you choose to bring the virus into a city.
 
A Spanish nurse has now caught it from one of the patients that was brought back. The first case of transmission in Europe.

I don't care what people say about the developed nations having quarantine procedures it is only a matter of time before it takes hold here. We have too much expectation that the 'authorities' can control situations like this. All we can do is delay it and hope it peters out or a treatment becomes widely available.
 
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