Reply to Michael Osterholm on Ebola

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "Michael Osterholm on Ebola"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You realize to catch Ebola you need DIRECT contact with body fluids, right? As in, you need to be in contact (touching) with blood or feces.

It is being taken seriously. Everyone is sending doctors. Governments are trying to close borders.

Measles killed over 100,000 people last year. A severe flu outbreak kills 500,000. Both are easily transmitted in aerosol form ( ie. you can breathe them in). And yet, your government does not require anything like vaccination or isolation of ill people.

Ebola isn't spreading because it's super infectious. It's spreading because it's in an area where even the hospitals do not have access to clean running water, single use medical supplies (like syringes), food for patients, and adequate,isolation capabilities.

Read the posts on here from people who seem intelligent enough and have the financial means to get themselves medical care, and don't. Now imagine that you are a hundred miles from a hospital, where in general people only go to die. You have limited food, water, and certainly no way to pay for care when you get there. You might have malaria (which is common in the area, and has the same early symptoms as Ebola), and you've been raised your whole life to not believe in Western Medicine.

THIS is why Ebola is a problem in west Africa. Unlikely it would be a problem if it ever made it to North America.

Maybe go to school and become an epidemiologist before you fear monger about a disease outbreak that is unlikely

[/quote]

Good grief how ignorant.[/quote]

Seriously? It must be paralyzingly to live a life of fear. How do you even get into the moving death trap you call a car? Airplane? Do you wear a mask and gloves every day to keep away from any infectious disease?

Maybe try putting some energy into the things that are likely to harm you. Ebola really isn't likely to be one of them. Sitting on your butt, getting heart disease while being an armchair epidemiologist is. [/quote]

Relax yourself. Saying Ebola can't be spread is like saying that AIDS is a disease of "Haitians"[/quote]

It can't be spread unless you touch secretions from someone who is sick. Even the doc that got it said he broke isolation protocol.

What you're saying is like saying all Haitians should still be avoided because they may have AIDS.

Buy a bubble and keep yourself safe, rather than stirring up unfounded fear in people. [/quote]

Why are any of you posting if you didn't read OP's article?

"The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that [b]an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.[/b] You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.

If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.

[b]Why are public officials afraid to discuss this? They don’t want to be accused of screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater — as I’m sure some will accuse me of doing. But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic.[/b]" [/quote]

Thank you! I know that presently Ebola is about a zero percent risk here. My fear is that this rapid mutator is loose in a cauldron of humanity unlike it has ever known.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics