Has Ebola gone airborne? re the US doctor & nurse who have caught it & possible case in Hong Kong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We shouldn't be too concerned about Ebola spreading to the US or other wealthy countries. It's transmitted entirely through exposure to bodily fluids. In settings with Ebola, there's bleeding in a variety of places and the virus is present in those excretions, and people need to come into contact with that to get the virus. The people at risk are the family members who are taking care of sick people, those who are preparing bodies for burial, and health-care workers.

The virus is not transmitted through coughing and sneezing, or through sitting next to someone on a bus, plane or the like. The idea that the virus can somehow mutate and become more readily transmissible from person to person through coughing or sneezing—those are Hollywood scenarios. The idea that Ebola can become more readily transmissible through casual contact is unrealistic.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what happened with Ebola Reston in The Hot Zone?

Wasn't the Reston strain infectious to simians only? I hope it was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We shouldn't be too concerned about Ebola spreading to the US or other wealthy countries. It's transmitted entirely through exposure to bodily fluids. In settings with Ebola, there's bleeding in a variety of places and the virus is present in those excretions, and people need to come into contact with that to get the virus. The people at risk are the family members who are taking care of sick people, those who are preparing bodies for burial, and health-care workers.

The virus is not transmitted through coughing and sneezing, or through sitting next to someone on a bus, plane or the like. The idea that the virus can somehow mutate and become more readily transmissible from person to person through coughing or sneezing—those are Hollywood scenarios. The idea that Ebola can become more readily transmissible through casual contact is unrealistic.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what happened with Ebola Reston in The Hot Zone?

Wasn't the Reston strain infectious to simians only? I hope it was.

Yes, it was. It's been at least 10 years since I've read the book but but I'm almost positive that's what happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We shouldn't be too concerned about Ebola spreading to the US or other wealthy countries. It's transmitted entirely through exposure to bodily fluids. In settings with Ebola, there's bleeding in a variety of places and the virus is present in those excretions, and people need to come into contact with that to get the virus. The people at risk are the family members who are taking care of sick people, those who are preparing bodies for burial, and health-care workers.

The virus is not transmitted through coughing and sneezing, or through sitting next to someone on a bus, plane or the like. The idea that the virus can somehow mutate and become more readily transmissible from person to person through coughing or sneezing—those are Hollywood scenarios. The idea that Ebola can become more readily transmissible through casual contact is unrealistic.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what happened with Ebola Reston in The Hot Zone?

Wasn't the Reston strain infectious to simians only? I hope it was.

Yes, it was. It's been at least 10 years since I've read the book but but I'm almost positive that's what happened.

Lets hope it stays that way. Contagious-via-bodily-fluids-Ebola is bad enough already...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some viruses mutate more quickly than others. That's the reason an effective HIV vaccine hasn't been found.

This isn't really applicable to ebola, though. And HIV is difficult to make a vaccine against for MANY reasons: because you can't use a live attenuated virus (too risky), it's a retrovirus (so it hides from the immune system), it has components that actively interfere with antibody development (Ebola does as well), and viral protein-based vaccines (a good candidate) aren't very advanced at this point and therefore not good candidates. It's really not much to do with mutation rate per se.

[Muslima]

The Reston virus is different from this one and non-pathogenic to humans

[Anonymous]

I've been poo pooing the idea of airborne spread of Ebola but I just read this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-health-ebola-transport-idUSKBN0G011O20140731

The spread of this outbreak from Guinea to Liberia in March shows how tracing even the most routine aspects of peoples' lives, relationships and reactions will be vital to containing Ebola's spread.

The original case in that instance is believed by epidemiologists and virus experts to have been a woman who went to a market in Guinea before returning, unwell, to her home village in neighboring northern Liberia.

The woman's sister cared for her, and in doing so contracted the Ebola virus herself before her sibling died of the hemorrhagic fever it causes.

Feeling unwell and fearing a similar fate, the sister wanted to see her husband - an internal migrant worker then employed on the other side of Liberia at the Firestone rubber plantation.

She took a communal taxi via Liberia's capital Monrovia, exposing five other people to the virus who later contracted and died of the Ebola. In Monrovia, she switched to a motorcycle, riding pillion with young man who agreed to take her to the plantation and whom health authorities were subsequently desperate to trace.

Have you heard of this woman's story? She took a communal taxi and somehow exposed 5 people to Ebola, all of whom died? How did that happen on a taxi??

[Anonymous]

PP again. If what happened above is true, then this is a very different type of disease, then past cases of Ebola. It isn't supposed to be spread through taking a taxi ride with other people (unless you are vomiting all over them, which doesn't sound like it was the case here)

[Muslima]

Unless she left bodily fluids in the taxi, I really don't see how this can happen. I would like to see more evidence of this as it is contrary to what we know about the virus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been poo pooing the idea of airborne spread of Ebola but I just read this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-health-ebola-transport-idUSKBN0G011O20140731

The spread of this outbreak from Guinea to Liberia in March shows how tracing even the most routine aspects of peoples' lives, relationships and reactions will be vital to containing Ebola's spread.

The original case in that instance is believed by epidemiologists and virus experts to have been a woman who went to a market in Guinea before returning, unwell, to her home village in neighboring northern Liberia.

The woman's sister cared for her, and in doing so contracted the Ebola virus herself before her sibling died of the hemorrhagic fever it causes.

Feeling unwell and fearing a similar fate, the sister wanted to see her husband - an internal migrant worker then employed on the other side of Liberia at the Firestone rubber plantation.

She took a communal taxi via Liberia's capital Monrovia, exposing five other people to the virus who later contracted and died of the Ebola. In Monrovia, she switched to a motorcycle, riding pillion with young man who agreed to take her to the plantation and whom health authorities were subsequently desperate to trace.

Have you heard of this woman's story? She took a communal taxi and somehow exposed 5 people to Ebola, all of whom died? How did that happen on a taxi??

Sweat

[Anonymous]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-health-ebola-transport-idUSKBN0G011O20140731

Pretty typical behavior. The locals think that the hospital kills the patient, not the disease.

[Anonymous]

Muslima wrote:Unless she left bodily fluids in the taxi, I really don't see how this can happen. I would like to see more evidence of this as it is contrary to what we know about the virus

Yes, exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:Unless she left bodily fluids in the taxi, I really don't see how this can happen. I would like to see more evidence of this as it is contrary to what we know about the virus

Yes, exactly.

I have been unable to find confirmation that the 5 people exposed in the taxi all died. I found news that the Liberian Department of Health was tracking them all, but can'd where they say that they have died.

[Anonymous]

Health Canada fact sheet on ebola

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php

[Anonymous]

Muslima wrote:Unless she left bodily fluids in the taxi, I really don't see how this can happen. I would like to see more evidence of this as it is contrary to what we know about the virus

You mean like maybe if she sneezed...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:We shouldn't be too concerned about Ebola spreading to the US or other wealthy countries. It's transmitted entirely through exposure to bodily fluids. In settings with Ebola, there's bleeding in a variety of places and the virus is present in those excretions, and people need to come into contact with that to get the virus. The people at risk are the family members who are taking care of sick people, those who are preparing bodies for burial, and health-care workers.

The virus is not transmitted through coughing and sneezing, or through sitting next to someone on a bus, plane or the like. The idea that the virus can somehow mutate and become more readily transmissible from person to person through coughing or sneezing—those are Hollywood scenarios. The idea that Ebola can become more readily transmissible through casual contact is unrealistic.

Isn't that pretty much exactly what happened with Ebola Reston in The Hot Zone?

Wasn't the Reston strain infectious to simians only? I hope it was.

Yes, it was. It's been at least 10 years since I've read the book but but I'm almost positive that's what happened.

I've read The Hot Zone multiple times. I'm pretty sure that it DID infect humans, but it only made them sick briefly and was not lethal to humans (Thankfully).