Ebola outbreak: Nurse infected in Spain

[Independent voter]

Not necessarily true, a dirty nuke would do harm, hell even those dirty bombs in Boston last year did damage.

I mean they do psychological damage more than anything.

[Masark]

I thought you could only be vaccinated against a virus, how does the Ebola drug work?

No, there do exist anti-viral medications, though they're narrowly applicable. They typically only work on specific viruses, not broad-spectrum like many antibiotics.

As for how it works, see here.

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Not necessarily true, a dirty nuke would do harm, hell even those dirty bombs in Boston last year did damage.

Those weren't dirty bombs, they were just improvised shrapnel bombs.

[Keosen]

I'll put it the same way a professor did in terms of how forecasters get accurate results and convince everyone how good they are at their jobs.

It's like a person makes the claim that they are so accurate when they piss that they can piss off the roof of a building right into a cup. Once they make bets and draw a crowd, they then get dozens of cups, put them next to each other, and take a piss. When it lands in one of the many cups they set out, they then say that that was their target all along, and hide the other cups before anyone notices.

In other words, this "random forecast" is essentially complete bull in terms of anything meaningful, and anyone who thinks that this will ever come close to infecting 3 billion people has absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

Back in August you could easily call it bullshit if someone was saying that 8.5k people will die the next 2 months from Ebola.
I'm not saying this will be entirely accurate just posting it for discussion's sake.

[Paula Deen]

I mean they do psychological damage more than anything.

True, very true.

When they started moving patients to EU and the USA, I said it was too risky; people in here called me ignorant.

I said I was a doctor (which is true, licensed doctor doing a residency, not a med student) and Mmo'ers didn't believe me.

So, here you go... Let's just hope this crap doesn't extend too much before the CDC get that cure and vaccine ready.

Alright..... you saying you are a doctor on the internet has about as much strength as me saying I am a Lawyer, it doesn't matter. One person, out of the dozens, who have treated patients has been infected in Spain, 1 in atleast 12, 8.3% of the people who have worked with the patients have been infected. It isn't perfect, but if that is what it takes to keep those people alive, it is worth it, on another note, as far as I know, not a single person in 1st World Countries has died from Ebola yet, so that 8.3% chance of getting it transmits into a 0% chance of dying from it. I like those odds, especially for the endgame of assisting those who were infected.

For the record I am not a lawyer.

[Kaleredar]

A random infection/death estimation(assuming no aggressive protection measures taken from governments) posted back in August is alarmingly accurate so far.

Complete bull. You could predict the number of deaths in Africa... sure. That's where all the deaths have been.

But what you're basically asserting is that it jumps to other countries where people DON'T eat meat off the ground or steal blood-soaked bedding or practice bloodletting in extremely unsanitary conditions.

This is like HIV. Do 3 billion people have HIV?

Can you think of a way that a disease that is much easier to identify but spreads in the same way as HIV can infect 3 billion people in a little over a year when only about 30 million people have been diagnosed with HIV since we learned of its existence more than 30 years ago?

If so, I'd just love to hear it.

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Back in August you could easily call it bullshit if someone was saying that 8.5k people will die the next 2 months from Ebola.
I'm not saying this will be entirely accurate just posting it for discussion's sake.

8.5k people in the same relative area in the same conditions as those who initially contracted it? Versus predicting it traveling to the western world where none of such conditions exist?

Night and day.

[Paula Deen]

Complete bull. You could predict the number of deaths in Africa... sure. That's where all the deaths have been.

But what you're basically asserting is that it jumps to other countries where people DON'T eat meat off the ground or steal blood-soaked bedding or practice bloodletting in extremely unsanitary conditions.

This is like HIV. Do 3 billion people have HIV?

Can you think of a way that a disease that is much easier to identify but spreads in the same way as HIV can infect 3 billion people in a little over a year when only about 30 million people have been diagnosed with HIV since we learned of its existence more than 30 years ago?

If so, I'd just love to hear it.

Fearmongola, its a new disease, you probably haven't heard of it.

[Biggles Worth]

A nurse getting ebola in a first world hospital is a cause of concern... Don't be dense.

What is dense are the people not making sure they don't have ebola from treating ebola patients before going off into the rest of the populated world.

[Deleted]

The nurse's husband is also infected (unsurprisingly) and she's in critical condition. What a shame.

[Independent voter]

What is dense are the people not making sure they don't have ebola from treating ebola patients before going off into the rest of the populated world.

You get a high fever before you become infectious and can spread the disease, I think. So as long as you don't have a fever you can travel.

[grexly75]

If someone is intent on infecting others they will find a way.. Case in point the infamous Typhoid Mary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary .. But in this case of Ebola you have a disease that has a near 100% kill rate if they do not receive special treatment .. Those that were cured were very lucky to have the proper treatment which is not available to everyone.. And in the end the only way to defeat such a disease until the next outbreak is to contain those infected keep out those not looking after them and those who are not infected and let the disease run its course..

[Deleted]

Oh so this time it´s not cows, birds, pigs or killer cucumbers?

[Grimbold21]

Im in the middle of the atlantic on my little island. You mainlanders stay the hell away.

[Deleted]

Spaniard here.

Let me explain some facts about spanish public health system and its impact about this particular case:
- Last policies applied in health system consists on several budget reductions. That implies closing some sections at main hospitals, being one of those sections the one dedicated to epidemiology at Carlos III Hospital. That section was re-opened when spanish government decided to repatriate the first missionary.
- Insulation material was bought at the moment it was needed. Nurses, doctors and the rest of the health staff was trained at the last moment, because there was no established protocol for cases like this. Ana Mato, our Health minister has avoided statements about this lack of means. While spanish people becomes worst attended at hospitals or care centers due to those budget reductions, politicians and bankers continue monopolizing the media due to corruption.
- The nurse with symptoms was sent back to his home and took vacation, embarking on a journey for ten days, with the possibility of having the virus spread beyond where it has been. Not yet reported what was that location.

[grexly75]

You get a high fever before you become infectious and can spread the disease, I think. So as long as you don't have a fever you can travel.

If you have been in contact with anyone who has been infected you should not travel until you are given a 100% clean bill of health by medical staff..

[Kaleredar]

If someone is intent on infecting others they will find a way.. Case in point the infamous Typhoid Mary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

Typhoid marry never intended to infect other people; she was in vehement denial that she had it.

[Paula Deen]

Oh so this time it´s not cows, birds, pigs or killer cucumbers?

Bolded part from what, I don't recall this one, and it sounds juicy.

[grexly75]

Typhoid marry never intended to infect other people; she was in vehement denial that she had it.

Yeah I should of worded my post better.. But anyways the problem was from what I understand (and probably not much) she never let them test her for the disease so as to prove her innocence.. She was considered the main suspect because of those kitchens she worked in people got typhoid and well 2+2 and so on..

[Independent voter]

Spaniard here.

Let me explain some facts about spanish public health system and its impact about this particular case:
- Last policies applied in health system consists on several budget reductions. That implies closing some sections at main hospitals, being one of those sections the one dedicated to epidemiology at Carlos III Hospital. That section was re-opened when spanish government decided to repatriate the first missionary.
- Insulation material was bought at the moment it was needed. Nurses, doctors and the rest of the health staff was trained at the last moment, because there was no established protocol for cases like this. Ana Mato, our Health minister has avoided statements about this lack of means. While spanish people becomes worst attended at hospitals or care centers due to those budget reductions, politicians and bankers continue monopolizing the media due to corruption.
- The nurse with symptoms was sent back to his home and took vacation, embarking on a journey for ten days, with the possibility of having the virus spread beyond where it has been. Not yet reported what was that location.

Wouldn't the EU help you in this situation? Seems like it would be in their best interest?

[Lindvahn]

The problem with the current number of infected people is, that it only tells us how many people were exposed to the virus 3 weeks ago. The incubation time on ebola is very long, making it possible for exposed people to travel very far before any symptoms surface.

I still think that ebola requires a bit more attention than the previous scares like H1N1. H1N1 wasn't dangerous to the general population, only the weakened and the elderly. My mothers cousins husband contracted H1N1 and suffered quite badly from it. He's quite heavy set and far from healthy, around 400 pounds and suffers badly from sleep apnea, but he lost just over 60 pounds over the course of the virus, and that was it.

Malaria kills close to a million people each year and so does influenza, sure, and there's no known cure for those either (flu shots are bogus, in case someone still didn't know), but last I heard survival rates for malaria were looking better (90% survival rate for otherwise healthy people) and the survival rates for catching the flu is extremly high. Ebola hovers around 50% mortality rate. Malaria doesn't really fare well as we get further from the tropic and sub-tropic regions, where ebola and influenza seem to survive fairly well. Ebola and influenza even have a nasty synergy, where the coughing, sneezing and increased sweating caused by influenza dramatically (if not exponentially) increases the possibility of transferring the ebola virus. Flu season is starting you say? We have infected being treated in the western world you say? I'm sure there's no reason at all to be worried or even take any meassures.

The antidote for ebola the americans made only worked in 2 out of the 3 people (in total, not ratio. 3 people. Total) it was tested on, and is required to be administered within 4 days of exposure. Remember the 3 week inbucation time. Even so, I recall that the amount of antidote they could produce in a year was 7500 or so doses (I may be WAY off here), making it far from a reliable preventative way of containing eventual spread.

HIV/AIDS isn't dangerous these days either, if you recieve proper care. Here in the western world, people with HIV/AIDS can live pretty long end normal lives. Chris Rock even called this in a show he made 10 or so years ago (2001 maybe), joking that not many years from then, people would call in sick for work complaining that their "AIDS is acting up".

I would not go as far as calling ebola a threat to humanity or the western world, but it should be watched with caution.

The poorer regions of Africa, however, I have a grim feeling are going to be hit harder than we might dare think. We, ourselves, were hit hard when the bobunic plague ravaged Europe and hundreds of millions were lost. Overpopulation in areas with limited and/or lacking sanitation, poor options for seeking medical attention and general malnourishment were the reasons 1/3 of the human population died from the bubonic plague, and the living conditions in the exposed parts of Liberia and Sierra Leone aren't far from how we lived back then.

I'm just saying that to show caution where caution is due.

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Oh so this time it´s not cows, birds, pigs or killer cucumbers?

No, this time it's batman... or well, batmen. Also batwoman, I guess. Fruitbats are known to be carriers for Ebola.

[Deleted]

I know twitter is not the real world, but the trending topics are a mix of indignation and panic.

#weareallgoingtodie is 2nd in Barcelona lol. The media is going crazy with this.