Ebola on the horizon?

[Justus]

I am not intimately familiar with the precise operating definitions the CDC or WHO uses to classify something as a bona fide airborne pathogen. For my practical purposes, if the pathogen can pass without direct contact, it qualifies as airborne to me.

I don't care what the technical definition of "airborne" is or even if ebola qualifies. I do care if ebola can be spread through the aerosolized bodily fluids because it ratchets the risk up. I don't make it a habit of going around licking the snot of strangers or drinking their blood. My personal risk of contracting ebola should be rare if it requires that kind of contact. But once a pathogen becomes transmittable via airborne droplets, it's a whole different ball game.

Exactly...
sorry, I couldn't tell by your replies if you were asking a question or making a statement.

I guess the real question should be if a droplet or two contains enough of a viral "dose" to kill a person?

 

[Justus]

I am not intimately familiar with the precise operating definitions the CDC or WHO uses to classify something as a bona fide airborne pathogen. For my practical purposes, if the pathogen can pass without direct contact, it qualifies as airborne to me.

I don't care what the technical definition of "airborne" is or even if ebola qualifies. I do care if ebola can be spread through the aerosolized bodily fluids because it ratchets the risk up. I don't make it a habit of going around licking the snot of strangers or drinking their blood. My personal risk of contracting ebola should be rare if it requires that kind of contact. But once a pathogen becomes transmittable via airborne droplets, it's a whole different ball game.

Here ya go, this is probably worth printing out.
The CDC posted guidelines for US hospitals today.
They are specifically recommending protection from droplets

"Standard, contact, and droplet precautions are recommended for management of hospitalized patients with known or suspected Ebola hemorrhagic fever"

Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in U.S. Hospitals | Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever | CDC

 

[HeadlessRoland]

Here ya go, this is probably worth printing out.
The CDC posted guidelines for US hospitals today.
They are specifically recommending protection from droplets

"Standard, contact, and droplet precautions are recommended for management of hospitalized patients with known or suspected Ebola hemorrhagic fever"

Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in U.S. Hospitals | Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever | CDC

Sounds familiar. Talk about the microphone not being on.

 

[88GT]

The risk is the same as it always was relative to what Ebola is and how it is transmitted. Your awareness has simply gone up. It's folly to compare it to other disease transmission methods or routes.

Whether ebola's actual risk has changed or not isn't really the point. The point is that I am more likely to catch it from an infected person if it can be transmitted via respiratory pathway than if it requires direct contact. If ebola really is transmittable via respiratory pathway, then the risk of transmission is far greater than what is being reported.

And the official line for ebola transmission has been that direct contact with the infected individual's bodily fluids was required for transmission. Inhalation of aerosolized droplets as a means of transmission between humans (this is an important point) has not been though to be likely. Possible, but not likely. I can't find much before 2010-2011 that gives the threat of a respiratory pathway any real legitimacy. And there are still official versions (government orgs and the like) that explicitly state airborne transmission is not a risk.

Practically, this means that the likelihood of an ebola outbreak is greater because people are still only taking precautions against direct contact contamination.

The HIV virus isn't transmitted in mucous or saliva

It doesn't matter for the point of the argument.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

Whether ebola's actual risk has changed or not isn't really the point. The point is that I am more likely to catch it from an infected person if it can be transmitted via respiratory pathway than if it requires direct contact. If ebola really is transmittable via respiratory pathway, then the risk of transmission is far greater than what is being reported.

And the official line for ebola transmission has been that direct contact with the infected individual's bodily fluids was required for transmission. Inhalation of aerosolized droplets as a means of transmission between humans (this is an important point) has not been though to be likely. Possible, but not likely. I can't find much before 2010-2011 that gives the threat of a respiratory pathway any real legitimacy. And there are still official versions (government orgs and the like) that explicitly state airborne transmission is not a risk.

Practically, this means that the likelihood of an ebola outbreak is greater because people are still only taking precautions against direct contact contamination.

You are conflating airborne with aerosolized particles. Airborne means the virus can live, on the breeze, for hundreds of miles without inactivating itself or having a spore that can resist inactivation from ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Aerosolized particulates can only travel feet before being too heavy to be carried on the breeze, or inactivated for whatever reason, as it were. Utilizing appropriate droplet precautions (N-100 respirators, etc. are already inclusive and standard procedure for diseases like Ebola) alongside other concurrent precautionary safety protocols are sufficient to prevent transmission via inhalation, or any other method of transmission, in a healthcare setting. In public, if you're close enough in your daily routine to be near one or more persons infected with Ebola, whether or not you're wearing an N-100 respirator is going to be the least of your concerns, since by that point the entire chain of transmission would have completely broken down. You're panicking over very little. Does aerosolized transmission increase Ebola's effective range for transmission? Yes, slightly. Does it actually change precautions for medical personnel working around patients infected with the Ebola virus? No. Does it make Ebola truly airborne? No.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Only a few years ago our government stated that Ebola would never come to the United States or spread worldwide because of the period of latency in the disease. I always called BS on this for the fact that should someone ever want to spread something like this they easily could. Plus, should the virus ever mutate to become airborne then it's game over for a lot of people. For those thinking they will just avoid bodily fluids, as T. Lex pointed out the virus can be transmitted via sweat and skin oils, so that can be more dangerous than other typical instances of spreading via bodily fluids.

Of course, I've always speculated that we're all just one rapidly spreading virus away from a mass casualty event but sitting here in my bunker behind my computer there's not much I can do, so I'm going to eat another bag of Cheetos and not worry about it.

"spread via bodily fluids" . . . Does anyone know what happens when an individual sneezes in an enclosed environment?

 

[Justus]

Sounds familiar. Talk about the microphone not being on.

Yep, you're right, excuse me, I didn't catch your first link.

 

[Justus]

Whether ebola's actual risk has changed or not isn't really the point. The point is that I am more likely to catch it from an infected person if it can be transmitted via respiratory pathway than if it requires direct contact. If ebola really is transmittable via respiratory pathway, then the risk of transmission is far greater than what is being reported.

And the official line for ebola transmission has been that direct contact with the infected individual's bodily fluids was required for transmission. Inhalation of aerosolized droplets as a means of transmission between humans (this is an important point) has not been though to be likely. Possible, but not likely. I can't find much before 2010-2011 that gives the threat of a respiratory pathway any real legitimacy. And there are still official versions (government orgs and the like) that explicitly state airborne transmission is not a risk.

Practically, this means that the likelihood of an ebola outbreak is greater because people are still only taking precautions against direct contact contamination.

When medical personnel are wearing respirator masks around ebola patients I figure that it means that ebola can be contracted through the respiratory system.

 

[VN Vet]

All I can say is this is stupidity at its best. When there is no hope for a cure, why bring a live virus home?

The best of Man's intentions can be missed up and fail big time. We could easily make a Government Conspiracy with an under-purpose to bringing this live virus into our Country.

My Opinion....

 

[1911ly]

All I can say is this is stupidity at its best. When there is no hope for a cure, why bring a live virus home?

The best of Man's intentions can be missed up and fail big time. We could easily make a Government Conspiracy with an under-purpose to bringing this live virus into our Country.

My Opinion....

I don't know that there is not hope for a cure. But I agree. Don't bring it here! It's just asking for a problem.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

All I can say is this is stupidity at its best. When there is no hope for a cure, why bring a live virus home?

The best of Man's intentions can be missed up and fail big time. We could easily make a Government Conspiracy with an under-purpose to bringing this live virus into our Country.

My Opinion....

Bigger and better way to let in myriad diseases is to do precisely what our government has been doing at our southern border for years, distract with one hand while all the diseases and dirty bombs flow through in the other. This is about getting treatment to fellow AMERICAN citizens who stand a better chance of surviving here than in some inadequately staffed and inadequately supplied hellhole masquerading as a hospital in Liberia.

I don't know that there is not hope for a cure. But I agree. Don't bring it here! It's just asking for a problem.

Again, they're being transported in the most secure, state-of-the-art, negative-pressure isolation wards in history. These people aren't what or whom we have to worry about. Far more dangerous than the appropriately-isolated wards aboard a private jet is the asymptomatic person who boards a commercial flight and starts grocery shopping. This is not a risk. This a controlled measure to try to help provide life-saving care to fellow Americans. If you had Ebola, would you rather they help try to save you here with our very good medical care, or leave you to rot in an understaffed, undersupplied hospital that doesn't have nearly the resources that we do? For me it would be a no-brainer. There's no risk of infection to anyone else. None. This is as controlled as controlled gets, and it might just save the lives of two fellow AMERICANS who will also at least provide a real-time ability to study Ebola so that we can learn more about it.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Time for INGOers to sweep their floors as ebola overwhelms attempts to control it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/w...rt-to-combat-ebola-virus.html?ref=health&_r=1

 

[finnegan]

Cross posted from another thread about Dr. Brantly in the Break Room
Working in surgery, ebola is a pretty scary thing. Every hospital has a couple of surgeons that take "hail Mary" cases that no one else will touch. And given that the new batch of residents is arriving Monday and Louisville has a very large naturalized refugee African population that often visit home, the prospect of going into an OR with an exploratory case (that will inevitably be a crap appendix or a nicked colon) currently has a much more frightening edge to it.

Closing borders and restricting flights and whatnot will not be nearly as effective in keeping something like ebola from entering the country as providing the frontline medical personnel with adequate funding to properly fight this thing. If we have to get really paranoid, the more people infected in Africa increases the chance of someone like the Boko Haram fighters from getting their hands on an ebola positive person and attempting to weaponize it, or someone willingly infecting themselves and hopping a flight to (enter evil, America hating country here) and then joining up with those no good militants of (insert terrorist organization here)who start infecting "bio-bombers", or just passing out super soakers full of it; so it really is in our best interest to stop this thing as soon as possible.

Let me also say that the myth of our strict isolation procedures are vastly, vastly exaggerated.

https://secure.msf.org.uk/donate/multidonation.aspx?type=cc&source=5771&country=113

 

[jedi]

Ebola has been an issue for years. just now getting more world attention. Justifiably so. Scares the hell out of me. I don't fear catching it at this point. I'd say it's a safe bet to day it will be in this country within year. Faster if they bring the patients here for treatment (obviously). That's what scare's me. I personally don't want the infected here. The research is there. Dam good doctor's are working on it. Bless them for that! They are hero's and know the risk they took helping. Moving the ill people around just increases the chance of spreading. Keep it there! Hopefully they will cure the ill and find a vaccine to prevent it. For the moment I want to see it contained. Isolated where it is.

Too late!!!
Ebola now in the USA!!!
https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...ctor-ebola-atlanta-treatment.html#post5200210

Plus 2nd is a 2nd Ebola infected also coming to the USA in the next couple of days.
HAVE WE LOST OUR MINDS!!!!

 

[printcraft]

Little music to calm everyones nerves......

[video=youtube;1_WOR22-SnY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_WOR22-SnY[/video]

 

[finnegan]

Just watched the video of Dr. Brantly walking into the Atlanta hospital. 20 feet from him is a uniformed individual (probably an officer) wearing no personal protective gear of any kind. A second vid shows a news crew cameraman with no personal protective equipment of any kind. Well...
American Ebola patient arrives at hospital - CNN.com Video
Ebola patient entrance to Emory University Hospital - CNN iReport

 

[Sylvain]

Just watched the video of Dr. Brantly walking into the Atlanta hospital. 20 feet from him is a uniformed individual (probably an officer) wearing no personal protective gear of any kind. A second vid shows a news crew cameraman with no personal protective equipment of any kind. Well...
American Ebola patient arrives at hospital - CNN.com Video
Ebola patient entrance to Emory University Hospital - CNN iReport

The infected patient is wearing a protective suit and mask, and so is the person helping him walk.

 

[jedi]

Yup someone post that video from resident evil please the one from how tokoyo gets infected

 

[finnegan]

If we knew how he got infected, I would completely agree with you. Since we don't, well, I'd personally like to think that anyone within a certain radius would be required to wear PPE. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think ebola is some sort of magical teleporting supervirus, but I'm surprised that those people didn't choose a few higher levels of precaution, at least gloves. Does look like he is "double bagged" though. Even his PAPR rebreather is under a second suit.

 

[renauldo]

There's all kinds of America haters out there. Suppose you take some suicide oriented volunteers and purposely expose them to Ebola. Then you put them on a plane.