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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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??

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

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.

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

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.