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Merged So Ebola's back......

Matthew Cline said:
A U.S. professor wrote an article for a major Liberian newspaper claiming that the U.S. Defense Department manufactured Ebola, and that organizations trying to fight the disease like World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders are a part of the conspiracy.

Source here.
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It's insanity and then some:

http://www.liberianobserver.com/security/ebola-aids-manufactured-western-pharmaceuticals-us-dod
Dr. Broderick is a former professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Liberia’s College of Agriculture and Forestry. He is also the former Observer Farmer in the 1980s. It was from this column in our newspaper, the Daily Observer, that Firestone spotted him and offered him the position of Director of Research in the late 1980s. In addition, he is a scientist, who has taught for many years at the Agricultural College of the University of Delaware.
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Matthew Cline said:
A U.S. professor wrote an article for a major Liberian newspaper claiming that the U.S. Defense Department manufactured Ebola, and that organizations trying to fight the disease like World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders are a part of the conspiracy.

Source here.
Click to expand...

Skeptic Ginger said:
It's worse, he's tenured:
Delaware State U. won’t interfere with free speech of professor spreading Ebola conspiracy theories

:eek:
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That's truly horrifying.
 
Matthew Cline said:
A U.S. professor wrote an article for a major Liberian newspaper claiming that the U.S. Defense Department manufactured Ebola, and that organizations trying to fight the disease like World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders are a part of the conspiracy.

Source here.
Click to expand...

Which, together with the insane gloating from some far right movements (J.-M. Le Pen in France joking about ebola solving overpopulation problems in Africa and immigration problems in France ... :rolleyes:) explains in part some of the extreme and irrational reactions towards health workers and refusals of quarantine measures.
 
I'm surprised that nobody had mentioned 4Chan's latest prank of convincing Africans that westerners worship Ebola.
 
catsmate1 said:
Impossible to say, certainly the lockdown in Sierra Leone last week caused about 200 unreported cases to be found so there are probably lots more.


As I said in the other thread, that idiot is going to people killed.
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I didn't know that 200 unreported cases were found in the lockdown.
And yes, that idiot will have a lot of blood on his head.
 
The aerosol risk and the CIDRAP article was well reviewed in the TWIV podcast. The issue is to distinguish between infection and transmission, so although it is possible to infect monkeys with aerosol challenge using a head chamber, there's no evidence that transmission is by the air borne route. This is possibly because the viral titres in the lungs is quite low, ie high titre virus can infect by inhalation but there's not much coming out of the lungs to transmit to other hosts.
 
Capsid said:
The aerosol risk and the CIDRAP article was well reviewed in the TWIV podcast. The issue is to distinguish between infection and transmission, so although it is possible to infect monkeys with aerosol challenge using a head chamber, there's no evidence that transmission is by the air borne route. This is possibly because the viral titres in the lungs is quite low, ie high titre virus can infect by inhalation but there's not much coming out of the lungs to transmit to other hosts.
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I am still only talking droplets here. One need not inhale the droplets, one merely needs to contact viable virus in some secretions that have been coughed out and land on a surface that is then touched, or coughed into one's face with exposed mucus membrane.

From Pigs to Monkeys, Ebola Goes Airborne

They showed the disease transmitted between animals separated in different cages. However, break in technique could have happened. The work needs to be replicated.

Again, media reports constantly confuse these issues just as they often call bacteria viruses.

http://www.virology.ws/2014/09/27/transmission-of-ebola-virus/
Viral transmission can also occur when virus-containing respiratory droplets travel from the respiratory tract of an infected person to mucosal surfaces of another person. Because these droplets are larger, they cannot travel long distances as do aerosols, and are considered a form of contact transmission. Ebola virus can certainly be transmitted from person to person by droplets.
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They summarize the study cited above:
In another porcine transmission experiment, animals were infected oronasally as above, and placed in a room with cynomolgous macaques. The pigs were allowed to roam the floor, while the macaques were housed in cages. All of the macaques became infected, but their lungs had minimal damage. However it is not known how the virus was transmitted from pigs to macaques. The authors write: ‘The design and size of the animal cubicle did not allow to distinguish whether the transmission was by aerosol, small or large droplets in the air, or droplets created during floor cleaning which landed inside the NHP cages’. The authors also indicate that transmission between macaques in similar housing conditions was never observed.
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catsmate1 said:
Let the paranoid ranting and end-of-the-world prophesying begin. :rolleyes:
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This is unprecedented. I know intellectually that the chances of transmission are low and there's no need to panic just yet... but I think of all the people he could have come in contact with and then the people they are contacting now. It's not hard to imagine a nightmarish scenario...however unlikely.
 
xjx388 said:
There's a confirmed case in Dallas now. Kinda scary...
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xjx388 said:
This is unprecedented. I know intellectually that the chances of transmission are low and there's no need to panic just yet... but I think of all the people he could have come in contact with and then the people they are contacting now. It's not hard to imagine a nightmarish scenario...however unlikely.
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I wouldn't worry about any nightmarish scenario for tertiary cases beyond the people at risk from initial contact unless CDC is unable to convince the exposed people to self impose isolation. That is where ignorance and underestimating ignorance has some potential.

But the people already in contact with this guy made a couple mistakes already, so that should be interesting.

Family and household members: definitely at risk and if we don't see a secondary case, I'll be surprised.

Health care workers: It all depends on that first visit when they apparently failed to ask the guy about his travel history. You never know if the media has the story right but from my experience, I'd say it is very likely someone dropped the ball big time on that first visit.

On the second visit (to the ED) someone was on the ball and asked the right questions. Hopefully the triage staff were just as competent. So I don't expect any secondary cases there.

But I'd bet dollars to donuts the health care workers with that first contact where they failed to ask the patient's travel history are going to be pooping bricks in fear for the next 3 weeks.


Edited to add, while I get it that the virus is not as contagious as most of us think, I also don't think the CDC's saying "only blood exposure" explains how Dr Brantly was infected. He said he saw patients in a sort of triage setting before they were deemed to be needing isolation.
 
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