ebola outbreak spreading

[Pete]

Can you address the information I presented, or is your only response "Oh, it's just DC Tom"?

 

Never mind...stupid question.  Of COURSE you can't address the information...you've already demonstrated that in this thread.

302518[/snapback]

No sh-- The Hot Zone is about Ebola you arrogant fug! It also discusses Marburg. It also discusses 4 other strains of Ebola.

[kegtapr]

Check out The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.  The book proposes the notion that Marburg or Ebola could be spread via plane travel and touch all over the globe.  The book also puts forth the theory that these virus can become airborne.  They cite one study where infected monkeys in a research lab were on one side and healthy monkeys were in cages on the other side.  All monkeys contracted ebola even though they had no contact with one another.  Anyways there is no vaccine or curative treatment available so I am not sure what difference good healthcare could provide.  Marburg and Ebola are nasty sh--!

302234[/snapback]

 

Don't worry, Dustin Hoffman will save the day!

[Rubes]

I have to admit, I'm really impressed with the Crap Throwing Monkey's knowledge of viral infectious diseases. It's good info.

 

Keep tossin that Crap, you Monkey.

[Johnny Coli]

While Ebola and Marburg are currently the "sexy" doomsday plagues for the American Idol crowd, the real concern right now is a possible outbreak of avian flu from southeast asia. That will be the big one, and most agree it's a matter of when, not if. It only took SARS a few weeks to make it to Toronto.

[nobody]

I have to admit, I'm really impressed with the Crap Throwing Monkey's knowledge of viral infectious diseases. It's good info.

 

Keep tossin that Crap, you Monkey.

302546[/snapback]

 

 

But isn't that how the virus spreads?

[Rubes]

But isn't that how the virus spreads?

302553[/snapback]

 

Rotavirus, perhaps.....

[Pete]

While Ebola and Marburg are currently the "sexy" doomsday plagues for the American Idol crowd, the real concern right now is a possible outbreak of avian flu from southeast asia.  That will be the big one, and most agree it's a matter of when, not if.  It only took SARS a few weeks to make it to Toronto.

302551[/snapback]

Avian flu is scary because bird migrations connect all the continents. Living on the Wind by Scott Weidensaul is an interesting read. Hummingbirds fly 200 miles across the Gulf of Mexico. Hawks fly nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. There is a Warbler that flys from Alaska to Cape Horn nonstop

[ExiledInIllinois]

There is another animal that harbors the virus between outbreaks. Scientists have  yet to identify what animal it is. Every so often, it passses from that animal to humans.

302252[/snapback]

 

Thanks Wacka.

 

Find that intermediary and one can develop a "silver bullet?"

[Wacka]

I forgot to add that it doesn't cause the bleeding in that animal like it does in humans. If it did, it would be easy to track it down.

No silver bullet, but then we could figure out how it transfers to humans and avoid that route of infection.

Erradication of smallpox was easier because it only grows in humans. Immunize everyone in an area, and it has no route of transmission. Measles and polio are basically erradicated in the Western Hemisphere by this approach.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

No sh--, Sherlock.  It's not like I'm trying to keep it a secret.

302495[/snapback]

 

Didn't mean it literally.

 

But hey, welcome back.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

I have to admit, I'm really impressed with the Crap Throwing Monkey's knowledge of viral infectious diseases. It's good info.

 

Keep tossin that Crap, you Monkey.

302546[/snapback]

 

I read a lot. And not just Richard Preston. C.J. Peters did a good review of emerging filoviruses about ten years ago, for example...but given that it's an actual scholarly publication, it must not be nearly as accurate as The Hot Zone.

 

And anyway...80% of it (of anything, really) is common sense. Ebola (save the Reston strain) and Marburg have a history of not spreading easily and quickly through large populations - the Kikwit epidemic, for example, developed so slowly that it was six months before it was even identified, and was burning itself out by the time the medical response was organized and on-site. And there's more than a few cases of symptomatic Ebola patients getting on planes and flying to major cities without infecting anyone (case in point: in one of the Zaire Ebola outbreaks, there was a nurse that caught the virus, got sick, flew to Kinshasa, and ended up having normal everyday contact with a confirmed 250 people - probably more - on the flight in and on the ground, some of whom shared food and drinks with her. She infected precisely no one.) And there's more than a small chance that Ebola, like Lassa, doesn't always cause a critical illness - Lassa fever for a long time was thought to be universally dangerous and kill have the people who got it, but it's since been discovered that most people who catch it develop low-grade fevers (a lot of cases of "fevers of unknown origin" in West Africa turn out to be low-grade Lassa infections), with maybe 1 in 1000 developing the severe form of Lassa fever, and considering that some 10% of the Pygmies tested in the Ituri forest have antibodies to Ebola (but are, in fact, not dead), it's entirely possible that the hemmoraghic version of an Ebola infection is not the only, or even most common, expression of Ebola. Not necessarily likely...but given the number of people living in regions where Ebola's endemic who carry antibodies to such, it certainly can't be ruled out.

 

But this outbreak is going to kill 90% of 7 billion people if someone gets on a plane and flies to Cairo...because Pete read it in The Hot Zone.

 

Like I said...common sense. Sadly, common sense isn't.

[Pete]

I read a lot.  And not just Richard Preston.  C.J. Peters did a good review of emerging filoviruses about ten years ago, for example...but given that it's an actual scholarly publication, it must not be nearly as accurate as The Hot Zone. 

 

And anyway...80% of it (of anything, really) is common sense.  Ebola (save the Reston strain) and Marburg have a history of not spreading easily and quickly through large populations - the Kikwit epidemic, for example, developed so slowly that it was six months before it was even identified, and was burning itself out by the time the medical response was organized and on-site.  And there's more than a few cases of symptomatic Ebola patients getting on planes and flying to major cities without infecting anyone (case in point: in one of the Zaire Ebola outbreaks, there was a nurse that caught the virus, got sick, flew to Kinshasa, and ended up having normal everyday contact with a confirmed 250 people - probably more - on the flight in and on the ground, some of whom shared food and drinks with her.  She infected precisely no one.)  And there's more than a small chance that Ebola, like Lassa, doesn't always cause a critical illness - Lassa fever for a long time was thought to be universally dangerous and kill have the people who got it, but it's since been discovered that most people who catch it develop low-grade fevers (a lot of cases of "fevers of unknown origin" in West Africa turn out to be low-grade Lassa infections), with maybe 1 in 1000 developing the severe form of Lassa fever, and considering that some 10% of the Pygmies tested in the Ituri forest have antibodies to Ebola (but are, in fact, not dead), it's entirely possible that the hemmoraghic version of an Ebola infection is not the only, or even most common, expression of Ebola.  Not necessarily likely...but given the number of people living in regions where Ebola's endemic who carry antibodies to such, it certainly can't be ruled out. 

 

But this outbreak is going to kill 90% of 7 billion people if someone gets on a plane and flies to Cairo...because Pete read it in The Hot Zone. 

 

Like I said...common sense.  Sadly, common sense isn't.

303760[/snapback]

You are a jackass! I have also read-

 

Coming Plague, The : Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett

 

The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project by Ed Regis

 

Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War by Judith Miller

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

You are a jackass!  I have also read-

 

Coming Plague, The : Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett

 

The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project by Ed Regis

 

Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War by Judith Miller

304698[/snapback]

 

Reminds me of the line from A Fish Called Wanda: "Apes don't read philosophy!" "Yes, they do, they just don't understand it!"

 

And yet, you evidently got so little from them, none of them support anything you've said, and you still used The Hot Zone as your primary reference in your posts. ( Of course, given that Regis' book isn't even applicable to the discussion at hand (and Miller's barely is), I wouldn't expect anyone to get anything from those.

 

Garrett's book is very good, though as it's more about the microbiology of infectious diseases and less about the epidemiology, the reasons for your ignorance is understandable. You should pick up "Betrayal of Trust" by her, too.