Ebola scaremongering?
- Thread starter Mynight
- Start date
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I think the first problem is that there isn't a quick and easy Ebola test widely available (and there are different strains), although I think a Southampton university offshoot company has one that is nearly/ready for market.
IIRC it normally takes either an anti-body test (time consuming) or an electron microscope and a human manually looking at the results.
The other issue is that normally bloods are testing for specific things such as levels of specific chemicals in the blood to work out if say your liver, or kidney are working and thus fairly quick and easy (our vet can do a liver function test in an hour for example).
Please explain how?
Soldato
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In theory if you stop people movement, then it can't spread, so they either die or survive, preventing outward movement prevents spread. therefore it burns out, like it has before, this time movement allowed it to spread, as so called 'treatment' was anything but, it just encouraged spread.
If you quarantine, and stop movement, you end it in 6 weeks, twice your incubation period.
Might be slight mishaps when the survivors start f'ing around, apparently you can be sperm contagious for three months after infection. Nasty old crotch rot.
As I am sure you are aware not all blood test are the same and take the same amount of time. I could take a sample from you now and give you a reading of your electrolytes and haemoglobin within a minute (on a handheld i-Stat) or alternatively I could send it to a lab and get the results in an hour. I could get a cross-match sample for a blood transfusion down to a lab but you'd realistically be looking at 1-3 hours for that. This is of course presuming normal infectious precautions. Add in the risk factor here and automatically those tests would have their times increased etc.
If you want to search for the tests specifically you would use in this case for diagnosis then they would only be done in a few locations (ie specialised labs) and you'd be looking at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELISA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_transcription_polymerase_chain_reaction
A more available way I think would be to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythrocyte_sedimentation_rate
This would be something more readily available and would give you a good indication even if not a direct "diagnostic indication". The ESR along with other symptoms would lead to a reasonable certain diagnosis.
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In theory yes, but I guess you've never been to a west African slum-city like Monrovia. The idea of an effective 6 week lockdown in an area like that is hopeless. ... Unless you're talking about locking down the whole area, might be possible but not without literally millions of cases.
Soldato
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Indeed, thus why I started with in theory, and the only way to do it is with unbribable military, whivh generally mean not african or middle eastern, or indeed eastern for that matter.
Needs to be ready to shoot folks too, as you'll have to in order to enforce the curfew.
Won't happen until it is too late.
No one really knows - doesn't give immunity to all different strains and there has been mixed results with subsequent immunity.
EDIT: From what I've read as well it tends to leave the immune system somewhat compromised for awhile (upto 6 months) after - some suspicion that people's immune system has overcome the ebola but succumbed to another disease they'd usually have no problems with boosting the number of people who have died due to ebola rather than dying from ebola itself.
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I'm not 100% some sources suggest that ebola mutates quickly so he may well catch it again in this outbreak.
http://www.nature.com/news/ebola-virus-mutating-rapidly-as-it-spreads-1.15777
We're not talking it becomes airborne but more that it doesn't replicate perfectly so each interation is potentially a new form of Ebola.
Completely assuming here but I assume the bodies immune system works like an antivirus program it searches for the "hash" of a previous virus and then works to defeat it(if it recognises). If a virus drops/adds parts of its RNA then it's creating a new hash our immune system may not recognise and cracks on as if there had been no previous immunity.
http://www.nature.com/news/ebola-virus-mutating-rapidly-as-it-spreads-1.15777
We're not talking it becomes airborne but more that it doesn't replicate perfectly so each interation is potentially a new form of Ebola.
Completely assuming here but I assume the bodies immune system works like an antivirus program it searches for the "hash" of a previous virus and then works to defeat it(if it recognises). If a virus drops/adds parts of its RNA then it's creating a new hash our immune system may not recognise and cracks on as if there had been no previous immunity.
Soldato
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Cruise Ship being refused docking permission as they have a medic on-board from the hospital that treated the Liberian American man who died.
She is confined to cabin, and hasn't shown any symptoms, and would be almost at the end of the 21 day period, but they are refusing the entire ship permission to dock.
Ruined holiday anyone
She is confined to cabin, and hasn't shown any symptoms, and would be almost at the end of the 21 day period, but they are refusing the entire ship permission to dock.
Ruined holiday anyone
He's an idiot but will probably find himself on the honours list.
Cruise Ship being refused docking permission as they have a medic on-board from the hospital that treated the Liberian American man who died.
She is confined to cabin, and hasn't shown any symptoms, and would be almost at the end of the 21 day period, but they are refusing the entire ship permission to dock.
Ruined holiday anyone
Which country is refusing the plague ship permission to dock?
Roughly, yes, but it's somewhat more versatile and complicated than that. The detection isn't based on the whole virus but on specific parts of it. The advantage of that is that many mutations in viruses aren't enough to cloak them from the immune system. I think (but I'm speculating here) that the disadvantage is that false positives are more likely (causing allergies).
Thank you for clearing that up
.I vaguely remember a lock and key analogy for virus reproduction where certain proteins on the virus(key) would bond to certain sites on a host cell (lock). This enables the virus to overtake the host cell and reproduce within.
So the immune system would search for signs of cells with the specific "key" proteins?
I vaguely remember t and B cells but I don't remember enough to really explain.