Anonymous wrote:The long incubation period makes it scarier. Someone could get infected and travel a week...week and a half later without knowing they were infected and with no symptoms, then get to their destination and come down with it.

It's not like all travelers could be tested for it before traveling

But the good thing is that it is NOT TRANSMITTED DURING ONE's incubation period but only once the symptoms appear (fever; granted nonspecific)!

"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.

Epidemiologists and virus experts believe the original case in that instance to have been a woman who went to a market in Guinea and then returned, unwell, to her home village in neighbouring northern Liberia.

The woman's sister cared for her, and in doing so contracted the Ebola virus herself before her sibling died of the haemorrhagic 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 a young man who agreed to take her to the plantation and whom health authorities were subsequently desperate to trace.

"It's an analogous situation to the man in the airplane" who flew into Lagos and died there, said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the West Africa outbreak closely."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-health-ebola-transport-idUSKBN0G011O20140731

How do you think she transmitted the virus to five other people? Puked all over them? pooped on them? They would have let her off the bus if she did that. Had wild sex with all five? I think it is very interesting how they are trying to say this very contagious disease is hard to get. In what way? By being 6000 miles away?

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, why are American doctors doing charity work abroad when there are so many needy people in the US. We should not have doctors overseas.

Seriously?????? I certainly hope you are a troll. I don't even know where to begin... Those doctors are saints and putting their lives on the line. They are learning and gathering information about these diseases so that we get closer to finding treatments and cures and vaccines. Not to mention keeping people from dying.

Anonymous wrote:I just watched Outbreak today.
Yikes.

Watch Contagion - that will REALLY put the fear into you.

More importantly, why are American doctors doing charity work abroad when there are so many needy people in the US. We should not have doctors overseas.

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.

Yes, you could get ill from close contact: sweat is considered a bodily fluid. And it's not clear that aerosolized droplets are not a mode of transmission. As for the idea that a virus mutating is Hollywood fiction, viruses do mutate. How do you think swine flu and avian flu got to be called those names?

Yes , some viruses can mutate. not all. The Ebola virus is composed of ribonucleic acid (RNA). Such a structure unfortunately makes it prone to undergoing rapid genetic changes via one of three mechanisms:

1) nucleotide substitutions resulting from purportedly high error rates during RNA synthesis; 2) reassortment of the RNA segments of multipartite genomic viruses; or 3) RNA-RNA recombination between non-segmented RNAs...The Ebola virus can use only the first and the third mechanisms as it has only one segment of RNA by capsid" (the protective coating of proteins).

Thus, scientists have asserted that, with regards to concerns about the virus being airborne, the genome (RNA) would have to mutate to the point where the protein capsids are immune to adverse air qualities (i.e. dryness). Furthermore, the genome would have to mutate in a way that allows the virus to be transmittable via respiratory function. Scientists insist that the chances of the virus mutating to this degree are extremely small, despite speculations about the airborne transmission of Ebola Reston. It also would probably need to change structure to allow infection through the respiratory system. There are no exact measures of the rate of mutation in Ebola, but the probability of the required mutations happening is negligible

Anonymous wrote:11.13 Colin Freeman spoke to the British doctor, Benjamin Black, fighting the devastating Ebola outbreak in west Africa who said belief in witchcraft is hampering the fight to stop the spread of the deadly disease.

Benjamin Black, 32, a volunteer with the charity Médecins Sans Frontières in Sierra Leone, said some of those in infected areas were not seeking medical treatment as they thought the disease was the work of sorcerers.

Belief in witchcraft and traditional medicine is still prevalent in parts of west Africa, particularly the remote rural areas of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia where the outbreak has been concentrated.oncentrated.

Dr Black, who completed a four-day stint earlier this week at an Ebola treatment clinic in Kailahun, near Sierra Leone’s northern border with Guinea, said: “There is a section of population here who simply don’t believe Ebola is real, they think it is witchcraft and so they don’t come to the treatment centres.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/10999981/Ebola-virus-outbreak-live.html

Probably many cases unreported.

They have no understanding of viruses either. They resist people in those containment suits who come to get ebola patients and take them to isolation. Who can blame them. They also insist on washing the corpses for burial instead of cremating them.

I just watched Outbreak today.
Yikes.

I have been searching news reports for several hours and have been unable to find confirmation that the 5 people who rode the taxi with the woman in Liberia contracted Ebola and died. I did see reports that the motorcyclist who transported her contracted Ebola quickly and then died.

The Liberian Ministry of Health Facebook page seems to be dedicated to convincing people that Ebola is a real threat.

11.13 Colin Freeman spoke to the British doctor, Benjamin Black, fighting the devastating Ebola outbreak in west Africa who said belief in witchcraft is hampering the fight to stop the spread of the deadly disease.

Benjamin Black, 32, a volunteer with the charity Médecins Sans Frontières in Sierra Leone, said some of those in infected areas were not seeking medical treatment as they thought the disease was the work of sorcerers.

Belief in witchcraft and traditional medicine is still prevalent in parts of west Africa, particularly the remote rural areas of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia where the outbreak has been concentrated.oncentrated.

Dr Black, who completed a four-day stint earlier this week at an Ebola treatment clinic in Kailahun, near Sierra Leone’s northern border with Guinea, said: “There is a section of population here who simply don’t believe Ebola is real, they think it is witchcraft and so they don’t come to the treatment centres.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/10999981/Ebola-virus-outbreak-live.html

Probably many cases unreported.

Anonymous wrote:

Why do you assume she wasn't pooping in her pants and vomiting in the taxi as she was dying of ebola? That's what I would imagine she was doing as she got sicker and sicker.

Because by the time the virus gets to that stage the patients are and have been bedridden for quite some time -- not moving around on their own. That's what I had thought anyhow. BUt she then got on the back of a motorcycle with some guy and went somewhere else. She was quite mobile, from what I have read.

Listen to these people, who know what they are talking about:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-07-31/understanding-deadly-ebola-virus

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??

Why do you assume she wasn't pooping in her pants and vomiting in the taxi as she was dying of ebola? That's what I would imagine she was doing as she got sicker and sicker.

Anonymous wrote:Scientists don't know everything about ebola. It hasn't been around to be studied for very long.

It looks like some believe ebola can live on surfaces for several days. The doctors that are suiting up and getting sick are an indication that it is highly contagious. Most of those doctors are not used to biohazard protocol, but some are and are still getting sick. It's not airborne, but perhaps it is heartier than previously anticipated.

I don't think it can spread here because of the practices of our hospitals and health care workers. Do these ebola tents in Liberia even have running water?

-mom who's been obsessed with viruses for many, many years

I just heard this discussed on NPR. The doctors said that the temperature inside the suits can reach 110 and they are working in un-air conditioned, sweltering tents. They get dehydrated and fatigued and make mistakes taking off the suits. Plus they are on malaria medicine which gives them weird psychological outlooks on things which also contributes to human error when taking off the suits. That's what the doctors said -- not that it meant the virus could be transmitted more easily than they thought.

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.

Yes, you could get ill from close contact: sweat is considered a bodily fluid. And it's not clear that aerosolized droplets are not a mode of transmission. As for the idea that a virus mutating is Hollywood fiction, viruses do mutate. How do you think swine flu and avian flu got to be called those names?