Ebola scaremongering?

Wow letting that nurse travel was beyond stupid.

We need to stop inbound travel from infected countries before it takes hold in the west. Screening at airports its ineffective

It's practically impossible to stop people coming into a country from the infected ones, at least without massively affecting the economy and potentially shutting off essential supplies*.

People can travel (quite easily) via indirect routes, or by crossing borders illegally, so unless you can supply enough troops (in full protective gear, and isolate them) to put one every couple of meters along the borders of the countries with cases you're pretty much stumped.

Instead you try and locate people as they come into the country, question them, if needed screen them and then try and keep track of them in the country.


*If illegal immigrants are willing to hide under trucks despite all the measures we take, how motivated do you suppose someone who thinks they may have ebola and wants good healthcare to be? (the only way to completely stop people sneaking in is to cut off pretty much all traffic and travel, which will badly affect our food supplies let alone anything else).
 
It's not just flying people to treat, there are still commercial flights from the three worst affected countries into Europe each week, loads of flights from neighbouring Senegal and masses from nearby Nigeria. I'd estimate hundreds of people are leaving that region pretty much daily - a few probably incubating the virus.

Yep. A disaster in the making. Can't understand it
 
So their is only 4 bio containment units capable of dealing with Ebola in the USA, how come the person with Ebola ended up at a Hospital in Dallas? :confused:

Do these places only have the capability to deal with one patient each? :confused:

  1. Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
  2. Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
  3. NIH Clinical Centre in Bethesda, Maryland.
  4. St Patricks Hospital in Missoula, Montana.

How many of these bio containment units do we have in the UK, which are capable of dealing with Ebola?
 
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Here's a statement from the nurses at that Dallas hospital:
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org...at-texas-health-presbyterian-hospital-in-dal/

If this is accurate, I expect we'll be seeing more than just the two currently identified cases. Duncan turned up at hospital (for the 2nd time) vomiting, on 28th Sept, died there on the 8th Oct. Mapping those dates forward 21 days, gives us 19-29th Oct. There's still loads of time for new cases to appear.
 
It's practically impossible to stop people coming into a country from the infected ones, at least without massively affecting the economy and potentially shutting off essential supplies*.

People can travel (quite easily) via indirect routes, or by crossing borders illegally, so unless you can supply enough troops (in full protective gear, and isolate them) to put one every couple of meters along the borders of the countries with cases you're pretty much stumped.

Instead you try and locate people as they come into the country, question them, if needed screen them and then try and keep track of them in the country.


*If illegal immigrants are willing to hide under trucks despite all the measures we take, how motivated do you suppose someone who thinks they may have ebola and wants good healthcare to be? (the only way to completely stop people sneaking in is to cut off pretty much all traffic and travel, which will badly affect our food supplies let alone anything else).

It may be an action we need to take though. The higher the infection rate the more likely that a new strain will evolve which could become infectious through thw mucous membranes, which would make it absolutely lethal and the beginning of the end.

They need to take action, moving to slowly will cost in the long run. Moving infected patients to western countries was just stupid
 
It may be an action we need to take though. The higher the infection rate the more likely that a new strain will evolve which could become infectious through thw mucous membranes, which would make it absolutely lethal and the beginning of the end.

They need to take action, moving to slowly will cost in the long run. Moving infected patients to western countries was just stupid

For me The bottom line is.
This sort of thing is not the type you try to penny pinch.
It requires what seems like over the top action.
 
For me The bottom line is.
This sort of thing is not the type you try to penny pinch.
It requires what seems like over the top action.

Indeed - here's the mainstream media coverage from April this year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26941698

'We' knew enough then, and had the capacity to lock it down. We couldn't be bothered and now are just starting to realise the consequence of past inaction.
 
Saw this on my fb (I know, I know) feed:

Ebola spread rate at current trend
Mar, 2014 - Infected: 104 Dead: 62
Apr, 2014 - Infected: 194 Dead: 116
May, 2014 - Infected: 360 Dead: 216
Jun, 2014 - Infected: 670 Dead: 402
Jul, 2014 - Infected: 1,247 Dead: 748
Aug, 2014 - Infected: 2,319 Dead: 1,391
Sep, 2014 - Infected: 4,313 Dead: 2,588
Oct, 2014 - Infected: 8,022 Dead: 4,813
Nov, 2014 - Infected: 14,921 Dead: 8,953
Dec, 2014 - Infected: 27,753 Dead: 16,652
Jan, 2015 - Infected: 51,621 Dead: 30,973
Feb, 2015 - Infected: 96,016 Dead: 57,610
Mar, 2015 - Infected: 178,590 Dead: 107,154
Apr, 2015 - Infected: 332,177 Dead: 199,306
May, 2015 - Infected: 617,849 Dead: 370,709
Jun, 2015 - Infected: 1,149,199 Dead: 689,519
Jul, 2015 - Infected: 2,137,510 Dead: 1,282,506
Aug, 2015 - Infected: 3,975,768 Dead: 2,385,461
Sep, 2015 - Infected: 7,394,928 Dead: 4,436,957
Oct, 2015 - Infected: 13,754,567 Dead: 8,252,740
Nov, 2015 - Infected: 25,583,494 Dead: 15,350,096
Dec, 2015 - Infected: 47,585,299 Dead: 28,551,179
Jan, 2016 - Infected: 88,508,656 Dead: 53,105,193
Feb, 2016 - Infected: 164,626,099 Dead: 98,775,660
Mar, 2016 - Infected: 306,204,545 Dead: 183,722,727
Apr, 2016 - Infected: 569,540,453 Dead: 341,724,272
May, 2016 - Infected: 1,059,345,243 Dead: 635,607,146
Jun, 2016 - Infected: 1,970,382,153 Dead: 1,182,229,292
Jul, 2016 - Infected: 3,664,910,804 Dead: 2,198,946,482
Aug, 2016 - Infected: 6,816,734,096 Dead: 4,090,040,457

We are at about 4000 now aren't we?

My concern isn't so much the Ebola, it is the fear. There was an instance in Paris I believe last week where an office building was locked down because of fears over someone who exhibited ''Ebola like symptoms'' which as I understand it are pretty common to other illnesses. I like many of you work in a large office. I shudder to think how I would react to being locked down somewhere with a suspected Ebola victim amongst us :/
 
It's ~2-21 days not sure where you got 42 from sorry. Apparently can live in sperm after the all clear for a couple months.

Main problem with that timeline its extrapolated from the current outbreak where there's limited medical abilities and widespread suspicion of medical staff. If ignorance wasn't a factor the spread could be much much lower.

Whilst I believe if it gets a foothold in this country in a vastly populated area such as London then we could be screwed. Too many people packed in a small location with inadequate supplies/services. Couldn't think of a better breeding ground.

I vote we watch doomsday to get some ideas. Namely flooding London and sealing off Scotland :D.
 
It's ~2-21 days not sure where you got 42 from sorry. Apparently can live in sperm after the all clear for a couple months.

Apologies, I've just re-read the report and it's 3% of infections which have an incubation period of up to 42 days whereas 95% occur between 1-21 day.
 
Does it mention the other 2%? (Asymptomatic contagious vectors :eek:)

Interesting I didn't realise there where such large numbers of cases with longer incubation kinda throws the already useless checks at the airports even further out the window.
 
Wow letting that nurse travel was beyond stupid.

Apparently she wasn't supposed to, but she did anyway. And this raises the point that quarantine measures have to rely on the co-operation of the parties involved. What if the person is too scared to go to hospital? Who doesn't get sent to hospital before they've infected someone else? How long before healthcare facilities become overwhelmed and they have to start turning people away? At what point do we lose control?

Whatever measures are being taken to develop the Zmap drug we really need to step it up or we're severely in danger of being caught with our pants down.
 
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Regarding incubation time, these are the best data we have:

Ebola1_zps0c8fe472.png

From: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100

With the bulk of onset occurring with ~12 days of exposure, add another day or two for reporting, and we should have a clearer picture of the US situation by the 22nd-ish, middle of next week.
 
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Massive incompetence. This women should never have been allowed to fly. Anyone who even has the remotest potential of being in contact should be quarantined even if it is against their will.

If this all goes **** up we will only have ourselves to blame, because we believed we were invincible, showing we haven't learnt a thing from the past.
 
I am thinking about getting some surgical masks ! lol You just know if it blows up here, that is the first thing that get's sold out.
 
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