Ebola

[buctootim]

From a colleague in Madrid. The Spanish infection control procedures.

 

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Edited 9 October, 2014 by buctootim

[Viking Warrior]

I just want to wish all my medical colleagues of 22 Field Hospital who are being deployed to Sierra Leone a safe and succesful tour of duty

[Deano6]

From a colleague in Madrid. The Spanish infection control procedures.

 

 

Is there a missing attachment I can't see? What are you saying here? You're not announcing that you have it, I hope.

[buctootim]

Theres a big picture under the post Deano. I guess you cant see it.

 

I do have a cough as it happens. They says thats how it starts....

Edited 9 October, 2014 by buctootim

[TopGun]

Has to be a huge concern now with an infection reported in the US to a nurse who treated the guy who flew in and died.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29590832

 

I'm not convinced that this can be contained. I hope that the pharmaceutical companies are working around the clock now with full government help for a vaccination that is speeded through the system and put into mass manufacture.

Edited 12 October, 2014 by TopGun

[ericb]

There is so much unnecessary scaremongering about Ebola. Basically unless you're transmitting bodily fluids or eating infected animals it's extremely unlikely you'll contract it.

 

These are the guidelines on how to contract it from the World Health Organisation.

 

 

When an infection does occur in humans, the virus can be spread in several ways to others. Ebola is spread through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes in, for example, the eyes, nose, or mouth) with

 

blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola

objects (like needles and syringes) that have been contaminated with the virus

infected animals

Ebola is not spread through the air or by water, or in general, by food. However, in Africa, Ebola may be spread as a result of handling bushmeat (wild animals hunted for food) and contact with infected bats. There is no evidence that mosquitos or other insects can transmit Ebola virus. Only mammals (for example, humans, bats, monkeys, and apes) have shown the ability to become infected with and spread Ebola virus.

 

 

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/

 

The issue with Medical professionals tends to be in countries with poorer health care systems, or over worked and dirty facilities. But if due diligence is taken it's highly unlikely they'll contract it.

 

Also the disease itself is manageable if caught early and treated properly.

 

What is happening in some of the African countries is nothing short of a disgrace, and is in no small part linked to corruption and civil war in those areas breaking down the medical care for those most in need. The likelihood of this happening on a grand scale in rich western countries is very low, but sadly that doesn't quite make good headlines.

[TopGun]

But a nurse aware to the risks and presumably in full bio kit has caught it in the US from the one known infected patient. That doesn't require additional scaremongering and I am fully aware of the danger of scaremongering in itself.

Edited 12 October, 2014 by TopGun

[ericb]

But a nurse aware to the risks and presumably in full bio kit has caught it in the US from the one known infected patient. That doesn't require additional scaremongering and I am fully aware of the danger of scaremongering in itself.

 

except you don't know the circumstances or conditions so it's probably best to take a news report with a pinch of salt at the moment and wait for real medical or scientific reports that don't have an agenda (in this case the sale of newspapers).

[buctootim]

But a nurse aware to the risks and presumably in full bio kit has caught it in the US from the one known infected patient. That doesn't require additional scaremongering and I am fully aware of the danger of scaremongering in itself.

 

Its two nurses in full kit who have been infected now, one in Spain and one in the US. Hundreds of medical staff have been infected in west Africa. It seems as though people are getting infected in the process of taking off their protective kit. I imagine they will have to introduce some kind of decontamination shower for the suits before removal.

[TopGun]

except you don't know the circumstances or conditions so it's probably best to take a news report with a pinch of salt at the moment and wait for real medical or scientific reports that don't have an agenda (in this case the sale of newspapers).

 

I agree and hope you are right. But newspaper sales are irrelevant when the relevant chief US medical officer has stated that a breach has occurred.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29590832

Edited 12 October, 2014 by TopGun

[Dark Munster]

Don't forget that this US nurse was working in the third world. Texas.

[Picard]

Has to be a huge concern now with an infection reported in the US to a nurse who treated the guy who flew in and died.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29590832

 

I'm not convinced that this can be contained. I hope that the pharmaceutical companies are working around the clock now with full government help for a vaccination that is speeded through the system and put into mass manufacture.

 

Sounds like someone's going to be making money out of this.

[OldNick]

If the nutters are prepared to strap bombs to their backs what stops them intentionally contracting the disease and then spreading it around the world?

[farawaysaint]

If the nutters are prepared to strap bombs to their backs what stops them intentionally contracting the disease and then spreading it around the world?

 

The short incubation period and crippling symptoms? It's a small window.

[Bearsy]

If the nutters are prepared to strap bombs to their backs what stops them intentionally contracting the disease and then spreading it around the world?

 

I saw this, and it made me think I'd be ok cos I'm v.careful bout not eating terrorist poo. Maybe it's not fact tho?

 

[aintforever]

You get the feeling we are sleepwalking into a worldwide disaster with this Ebola thing. No government can be arsed to really spend what is needed to stop it as it is in Africa so it's just going to spread and spread.

 

This time next year we will all be f*cked.

[Unbelievable Jeff]

You get the feeling we are sleepwalking into a worldwide disaster with this Ebola thing. No government can be arsed to really spend what is needed to stop it as it is in Africa so it's just going to spread and spread.

 

This time next year we will all be f*cked.

 

I'm not sure that's true, not for first world countries - the issue is if it can mutate into a airborne virus.

[alpine_saint]

28 Days Later and Outbreak are based on Ebola.

 

Scary sh*t.

[aintforever]

I'm not sure that's true, not for first world countries - the issue is if it can mutate into a airborne virus.

 

I dunno, 1 person got it in Spain and 1 in US - both ended up infecting nurses who supposedly had the full protective equipment and medical training. Not sure how Africa is going to stop that sort of thing just spreading when the numbers are in their thousands.

[bridge too far]

I dunno, 1 person got it in Spain and 1 in US - both ended up infecting nurses who supposedly had the full protective equipment and medical training. Not sure how Africa is going to stop that sort of thing just spreading when the numbers are in their thousands.

 

I don't think those unfortunate people 'got it' in Spain and the US. They were being treated in those countries having been infected in Africa - slight difference. Some people who had been treating them were subsequently infected.

[Minty]

I dunno, 1 person got it in Spain and 1 in US - both ended up infecting nurses who supposedly had the full protective equipment and medical training. Not sure how Africa is going to stop that sort of thing just spreading when the numbers are in their thousands.

 

And herein lies one of the problems of modern human existence.

 

We are one species on one planet. We cannot seperate ourselves from what is happening in Africa, nor should we be leaving to 'Africa' to sort it out. Diseases do not respect borders.

 

We have a treatment for Malaria, yet over 300,000 have died from it since the Ebola outbreak began. DOUBLE that have died from TB. Yet people are not up in arms about those because they are effectively 'out of sight, out of mind'.

 

Ebola IS concerning, and we must take it seriously. But the real tragedy is that 'developed' nations such as ourselves only seem interested when it might affect us in our own country, and in the mean time we obsess over things like immigration and growth and let 'Africa' get on with dealing with disease on their own, leading to the deaths of thousands, which barely raises an eyebrow. On that basis, are we really 'developed'...?

[norwaysaint]

I don't think those unfortunate people 'got it' in Spain and the US. They were being treated in those countries having been infected in Africa - slight difference. Some people who had been treating them were subsequently infected.

 

That's an odd thing to say. Health workers were infected on US and Spanish soil while treating ebola victims. Now other people will be treating them. It's clearly not impossible that one of those will become infected. As with any disease, the more people infected, the more people infected and it could spread from those. Does it not count unless there is a wholly unconnected victim in a country? They "got it" in the US and Spain. Others might too.

[bridge too far]

That's an odd thing to say. Health workers were infected on US and Spanish soil while treating ebola victims. Now other people will be treating them. It's clearly not impossible that one of those will become infected. As with any disease, the more people infected, the more people infected and it could spread from those. Does it not count unless there is a wholly unconnected victim in a country? They "got it" in the US and Spain. Others might too.

 

Sorry - didn't express myself very well. I was trying to show that Ebola infection is not rife anywhere apart from West Africa and not really an issue in Spain / US etc. I hope it won't become one. Had the original 'infectees' been treated at the site of their infection, the health workers in Spain and the US would not have been infected.

[buctootim]

And herein lies one of the problems of modern human existence.

 

We are one species on one planet. We cannot seperate ourselves from what is happening in Africa, nor should we be leaving to 'Africa' to sort it out. Diseases do not respect borders.

 

We have a treatment for Malaria, yet over 300,000 have died from it since the Ebola outbreak began. DOUBLE that have died from TB. Yet people are not up in arms about those because they are effectively 'out of sight, out of mind'.

 

Ebola IS concerning, and we must take it seriously. But the real tragedy is that 'developed' nations such as ourselves only seem interested when it might affect us in our own country, and in the mean time we obsess over things like immigration and growth and let 'Africa' get on with dealing with disease on their own, leading to the deaths of thousands, which barely raises an eyebrow. On that basis, are we really 'developed'...?

 

Its a commendable post Minty, but not an accurate one. People also die right here in the UK from TB, Malaria, Hepatitis etc far more than from Ebola. Hepatitis B and C has affected 2 billion people worldwide and kills at least 1 million a year. Its 100 times more infective than HIV but gets a fraction of the coverage.

 

The reality is that the media cover the new and ignore stories which are 'old'. Ebola is new and dramatic and we'll hear about it a lot for a few weeks. After that the story will fade away just like the Malaysian plane crashes or Japanese tsunami. Its got nothing to with 'them' and 'us'

[aintforever]

I don't think those unfortunate people 'got it' in Spain and the US. They were being treated in those countries having been infected in Africa - slight difference. Some people who had been treating them were subsequently infected.

 

I know the original people didn't catch it here but my point is that if trained health professionals caught it of these two cases alone it doesn't give much confidence that we could cope if 10s or 100s of people turn up in the UK daily with the virus should the situation in Africa get worse - which it looks like it will.

[badgerx16]

I dunno, 1 person got it in Spain and 1 in US - both ended up infecting nurses who supposedly had the full protective equipment and medical training. Not sure how Africa is going to stop that sort of thing just spreading when the numbers are in their thousands.

 

Based on reports from the US, that is an assumption that that probably does not stand up to scrutiny.

"Nurses at the Dallas hospital say they worked for days without adequate protective clothing and received little guidance on how to prevent the spread of the virus." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29628622

Edited 15 October, 2014 by badgerx16

[aintforever]

Based on reports from the US, that is an assumption that that probably does not stand up to scrutiny.

"Nurses at the Dallas hospital say they worked for days without adequate protective clothing and received little guidance on how to prevent the spread of the virus." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29628622

 

that doesn't inspire confidence that western countries will be able to cope though.

[Manuel]

We are one species on one planet. We cannot seperate ourselves from what is happening in Africa, nor should we be leaving to 'Africa' to sort it out. Diseases do not respect borders.

A problem seems to be that the desire to eat bush meat (monkeys, bats, whatever) is strong despite the risks. As long as the practice continues it's unlikely you'll prevent the disease at its source. Countries such as ours can try to push education of the causes of the disease and attempt to influence some change, but until that happens our only option to prevent spread overseas is to limit travel and tighten security at borders. And of course continue with efforts to create a vaccine.

[Unbelievable Jeff]

that doesn't inspire confidence that western countries will be able to cope though.

 

Not really, cos they know now!

[Halo Stickman]

A problem seems to be that the desire to eat bush meat (monkeys, bats, whatever) is strong despite the risks. As long as the practice continues it's unlikely you'll prevent the disease at its source. Countries such as ours can try to push education of the causes of the disease and attempt to influence some change, but until that happens our only option to prevent spread overseas is to limit travel and tighten security at borders. And of course continue with efforts to create a vaccine.

 

Education that sometimes involves dispelling traditional beliefs, for example:

 

Traditional beliefs continue to pose impediments in this fight. In a village in the southern province of Bo, a Muslim cleric died of the Ebola virus, and many did not know. His community did not only go to the extent of bathing the infected corpse, but used the water to bathe their children. It is believed that such a practice would transfer to the children the wisdom of the dead cleric. The whole village has been affected and quarantined

 

The above is an excerpt from an article linked below:

 

http://www.okayafrica.com/news/ebola-crisis-sierra-leone-lockdown/#slide1

[Bearsy]

So, to recap pls, as long as I don't eat bats or monkeys, or bathe with infected corpses, I'll prob be ok yeah? Yeah? Pls!

[Unbelievable Jeff]

So, to recap pls, as long as I don't eat bats or monkeys, or bathe with infected corpses, I'll prob be ok yeah? Yeah? Pls!

 

Necrophilia also counts B.

[Bearsy]

**** we're all ****ed

[Saintandy666]

I'm not sure that's true, not for first world countries - the issue is if it can mutate into a airborne virus.

 

It won't mutate into an airborne virus. The kind of structural changes needed to the genome in conjunction with a crap load of chance just means it is so unlikely.

 

And the good news is that a vaccine is hopefully on the way. Second phase human trials begin in Oxford on one possibility today (my friend is one of the subjects). So if the second phase is as successful as prior phases we can expect some fast-track rolling out into endemic areas in the new year.

Edited 15 October, 2014 by Saintandy666

[Bearsy]

How much money does ur mate get paid to be human trial, andy? And how does it work, do they give you vaccine then make you have bath with dead monkey?

[Saintandy666]

How much money does ur mate get paid to be human trial, andy? And how does it work, do they give you vaccine then make you have bath with dead monkey?

 

People get paid a decent amount. To understand how the vaccine works you need to understand how adaptive specific immunity works which is basically that your body recognises particular proteins from past foreign interaction/infection. In this case they can't just chuck the ebola in there (obviously) as it is just string of RNA, so what they have done which I think is quite clever is they've taken 1 particular gene (which codes for a non-threatening glycoprotein) from the Ebola genome and put it in a chimpanzee adenovirus (i.e common cold). So the idea is that the body will recognise this foreign protein and produce antibodies against it. You'll be able to know whether it has been effective by taking blood samples afterwards and testing the antibodies.

 

Ebola as a side note has a very short genome (RNA, not DNA as well) - just 8 genes, 7 contribute to the overall protein structure of it all.

 

Edit: And obvs the chimp virus being used to carry the ebola protein is different enough from ebola that there's no danger it'll mutate and revert back whatsoever, and then also different enough from human common colds that there shouldn't be immunity present already.

Edited 15 October, 2014 by Saintandy666

[Bearsy]

Tks andy. That's what i thought they'd prob do, i was just confused why they hadn't done it earlier. It would have been the first thing i tried.

[Unbelievable Jeff]

Tks andy. That's what i thought they'd prob do, i was just confused why they hadn't done it earlier. It would have been the first thing i tried.

 

:lol:

[Bearsy]

shut up jeff i totally got it! It's like this:

 

Say you wanted to ban women from ur football ground, but you can't actually ban women cos of equal rights, what you would do is you'd show ur security teams a video of someone moaning on about how cold they are and did i remember to set skybox to record x-factor, and tell them if they hear anyone moaning on like that to eject them from the ground.

[Halo Stickman]

Interesting article in the National Geographic about the search for a vaccine

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141014-ebola-vaccine-treatment-history-health-medicine/

 

Progress also has been slowed by the hazards that come with researching it and—perhaps more than anything else—by the economic and moral questions of focusing on a pathogen that until the current outbreak had infected fewer than 2,400 people worldwide. At a time when malaria kills 600,000 people a year, tuberculosis kills 1.3 million, and AIDS 1.6 million, Ebola was a lower priority for many health officials.

[buctootim]

shut up jeff i totally got it! It's like this:

 

Say you wanted to ban women from ur football ground, but you can't actually ban women cos of equal rights, what you would do is you'd show ur security teams a video of someone moaning on about how cold they are and did i remember to set skybox to record x-factor, and tell them if they hear anyone moaning on like that to eject them from the ground.

 

Dont sweat it Beasy, SaintAndy is just blagging anyway. Everyone knows common colds are rhino viruses. No wonder they're bad tempered.

Edited 15 October, 2014 by buctootim

[Unbelievable Jeff]

shut up jeff i totally got it! It's like this:

 

Say you wanted to ban women from ur football ground, but you can't actually ban women cos of equal rights, what you would do is you'd show ur security teams a video of someone moaning on about how cold they are and did i remember to set skybox to record x-factor, and tell them if they hear anyone moaning on like that to eject them from the ground.

 

You proper crack me up.

[badgerx16]

Everyone knows common colds are rhino viruses. No wonder they're bad tempered.

 

And Influenza is a virus from water birds, no wonder it makes you feel fowl.

( Badgerx16, BSc(Hons) Microbiology )

[Saintandy666]

Dont sweat it Beasy, SaintAndy is just blagging anyway. Everyone knows common colds are rhino viruses. No wonder they're bad tempered.

 

http://www.cdc.gov/adenovirus/hcp/clinical-overview.html - What people call a common cold will often be an adenovirus! Obvs could be a rhinovirus too though. Although I appreciate the joke!

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

I keep hearing criticism that some nations are not contributing very much towards to international effort to counter the Ebola outbreak in Africa. This link shows that the US and the UK lead the way and how much some other states have helped:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11179135/What-countries-have-pledged-to-fight-Ebola...-and-how-much-theyve-paid-into-the-fund.html

 

Note that China has contributed very little considering the (vast) size of its economy and Russia too is notable by its absence. Much the same could be said about Spain, Italy, South Africa and (with the exception of little Kuwait) all the wealthy Arab oil economies. I also note that Australia's contribution almost matches that of mighty Germany.

Edited 29 October, 2014 by CHAPEL END CHARLIE

[Minty]

Interesting article about the possible origins of the outbreak.

 

http://theconversation.com/deforestation-and-the-rise-of-industrial-scale-farming-in-africa-could-lie-behind-ebola-outbreak-33488