Ebola virus outbreak

Funnyonion79

Haha I know! It sounds completely nuts. I agree with you. But what if.....

josip

Funnyonion79 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Apologies if .. I ... sounds way too ... foolish ...

Jaysus, just jaysus.

lintdrummer

I think it would be an insult to the seriousness of this outbreak to even discuss such a ridiculous article, and I didn't even get passed the first paragraph, however it must be said that it is exactly these kind of poorly informed and ridiculous notions amongst natives that are contributing to the spread Ebola in West Africa.

nyarlothothep

Henry Kissinger (a member of the Bilderberg council) said he wanted an 80% reduction in the world population. Ebola if left untreated kills roughly 70-80%.

Rotunda Shill

2014 minus 666 = 1348

The the Black Death or Bubonic Plague occurred in the year 1348

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1348

Maximus Alexander

Sounds like Henry Kissinger is going to be sorely disappointed.

Rotunda Shill wrote: »

2014 minus 666 = 1348

The the Black Death or Bubonic Plague occurred in the year 1348

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1348

And if you remove the 'E', 'l' and 'a' from 'Ebola' you get 'bo', which are the third and fourth letters of 'Bubonic'. Coincidence? I think not.

andrew

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Henry Kissinger (a member of the Bilderberg council) said he wanted an 80% reduction in the world population. Ebola if left untreated kills roughly 70-80%.

LuckyLloyd

Rotunda Shill wrote: »

2014 minus 666 = 1348

The the Black Death or Bubonic Plague occurred in the year 1348

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1348

There were many plagues

Turtwig

Creative Juices wrote: »

But ebola is already in the USA (albeit containable) so I don't see how "any" works?

As of yet though no 'ordinary' member of the public has been affected.

FullblownRose wrote: »

One of the reasons there isnt a vaccine at present is the mutability of the virus and the inherent danger to handling it..the flu vaccine has to be tweaked to be efficaious against each annual strain of flu because infuenza is also very mutable so how can they even predict that the ebola vaccine will work in the next outbreak? it is this current more virulent strain thats the major concern, or are they redicting a worse strain the next time and basing their vaccine n this, with that hypothesis in mind?

One of the more interesting aspects of vaccinations is that some vaccinations help provide resistant and immunity to other strains of the virus. Others of course do not. During the swine flu epidemic people who were exposed either via infection or vaccination to particularly virulent influenza strain in the 1980s (forget the year) had higher levels of resistance towards the H1N1. The net generalisation being that healthy people under 25 were far more likely to have a serious experience of swine flu than people over it.
"Big Pharma" had a dilemma over vaccination during that outbreak. Did they focus on the 'normal' season flu variant or swine flu or both? Both were just bog standard flu vaccinations so producing within the same time frame was very accessible. Seasonal flu in some regions presented the more dominant threat to the older demographics, especially the very elderly or those with health conditions. There were two competing strains, season and swine, for some regions during the flu season. In other places there was one clear dominant strain: seasonal or swine. Eventually there was a combined form of the vaccine but if memory serves that proved less popular and more expensive than the singular types (Although nowadays Swine Flu is included in the season flu vaccine.). Swine flu struck during the southern Hemisphere's regular flu season so for example Australia health's system, particularly their A&E services got stretched heavily by Swine Flu. In contrast, Ireland barely got any major additional loads to its A&E services because it wasn't our flu season. (Thankfully! one does wonder how our health services would have coped with a stretching similar to what the Aussie's endured.) Pharmaceuticals pretty much profited anyway but the level of their profit varied quite noticeably from region to region depending on what strain they produced and what was actually needed.


Course, there's also the big massive win they had with Tamiflu and Relenza. The former has its efficacy currently under a microscope. Ben Goldacre, basically described it as a pill for producing lots of unwanted vomit. Yet governments stocked up with it in their droves. (Anyone know how much the HSE spent on it?) Money spent on vaccinations, thankfully, better spent. Though there was obviously some pandering to reassuring the public and paying over the top for vaccinations. In part down to not knowing which strain was needed and in part because that's the pharmaceutical industry for you. (The supplements industry were no saints either during this time. Which is one thing that's really surprised me about the current ebola outbreak where's the more outlandish echinacea and homoepathy claims gone? Surely homeopathy can treat ebola?)

For vaccinating ebola things are in some ways a fair deal easier and a good bit harder. The disease has infected practically nobody (in terms of infectious diseases). 100,000 - ebola is one tenth of this- infected cases doesn't give the virus much chance at significant mutation. So it should be easier to be identify the strain to target a vaccination at. It should also be far less likely that a significant mutation occurs that renders that vaccination ineffective. Where it's harder is in safety and production. There's never been an approved vaccination of ebola. For Swine Flu it was just a matter of rejigging the process a little - redesigning the roof of the house so to speak. For Ebola, the entire house must first be built and then it must be rigorously tested to be deemed safe. The risk of any individual contracting ebola is incredibly low. The risk of any side effects would need to be offset against this risk of contraction. NOT against the perceived risk of fatality from ebola. (A factor which scaremongering and panic would influence.). Quantifying that risk of side effects would take some time. Experimental drugs seem a far safer short term solution.

It's possible that the vaccination ends up targeting a less dominant strain, nothing can ever be excluded, it's just highly unlikely. Even if it did happen odds are decent that a vaccination against a strain of ebola would have your immune system primed for whatever variant of ebola nature throws at you. The key thing here is that it's all probabilistic. These odds must be offset against the vaccinations risks. Health experts will decide what's the most likely strain of the virus and bank their vaccination recommendations on that. It'll be a lot harder for them to safely assess a vaccination though. The thing is though it's like any decision in life you make you make the best guess possible based on the information available to you at the time. We'd like to think it's highly unlikely that a vaccination would be useless but we know from this world that winning the euromillions lottery is incredibly unlikely - yet people do it! The vaccination will have side effects - everything does! In nature, nothing can ever be excluding from happening and we can only focus our resources on the most likely stuff to happen. Planning for the rare exceptions is far far far too expensive.


Edit: that was far far longer than intended. D'oh!

nyarlothothep

andrew wrote: »

Hahaha, that was hilarious! Thanks for that.

Turtwig

Funnyonion79 wrote: »

THEY ARE LYING!!! “Ebola” as a virus does NOT Exist and is NOT “Spread”

I stopped read here. Hoping against hope it's a Poe. If not, perhaps those so confident the virus doesn't exist and doesn't spread wouldn't mind swimming in a grave filled with deceased bodies? Or you know, maybe just spending a year living along the regular hotzones of the ebola river or those in the congo? :rolleyes:

Rotunda Shill

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

And if you remove the 'E', 'l' and 'a' from 'Ebola' you get 'bo', which are the third and fourth letters of 'Bubonic'. Coincidence? I think not.

"BO" Barack Obama. :eek:

EDit

Interesting article here. Part about Francis and his family all bundling into the car gives a clear insight as to how this is spreading so fast over there!

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29507673

Rotunda Shill

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

There were many plagues

The Black Death was the mother of all plagues because it nearly wiped out half of Europe, also the Jews got blamed for spreading it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_Jewish_persecutions

Streetwalker

Has Enda Kenny blamed SF for this outbreak yet?

Funnyonion79

Turtwig wrote: »

I stopped read here. Hoping against hope it's a Poe. If not, perhaps those so confident the virus doesn't exist and doesn't spread wouldn't mind swimming in a grave filled with deceased bodies? Or you know, maybe just spending a year living along the regular hotzones of the ebola river or those in the congo? :rolleyes:

Yeah I figured it was total rubbish but I thought hey, if anyone can confirm that it's total rubbish, it'll be the good folk in the Ebola After Hours thread. Carry on

*goes off to ring Jim Corr*

ceadaoin.

So there are now around 1,000 people in the US under some form of monitoring for Ebola symptoms after coming into contact with the 3 confirmed patients. If that's how many contacts 3 cases generates I can only imagine what will happen if/when more cases start to crop up. It will be totally unmanageable.

In recent days, the number of people who have been asked to monitor themselves for symptoms has been steadily growing, especially among healthcare workers who were involved in the original treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who died from Ebola on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.



As of Friday, a pool of about 1,000 people are being watched for symptoms, have been asked to monitor themselves or have been urged to check with a counselor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group includes a handful of people who have been ordered into quarantine, a larger group that is being closely watched with temperatures taken at least daily and a much larger group of travelers who may haven flown on a Frontier Airlines jetliner used at some point by an Ebola patient traveling with a low-grade fever.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-fear-monitoring-20141017-story.html

josip

ceadaoin. wrote: »

So there are now around 1,000 people in the US under some form of monitoring for Ebola symptoms after coming into contact with the 3 confirmed patients. If that's how many contacts 3 cases generates I can only imagine what will happen if/when more cases start to crop up. It will be totally unmanageable.



http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-fear-monitoring-20141017-story.html

If I remember correctly from the BBC article posted here, the Nigerians were monitoring 900 on a daily basis for their first case and that quickly ramped up to almost 30,000.

crockholm

Deep breath.........only about 4500 people are dead at the moment, it is largely contained within 3 countries with a combined population of about 22,000,000,within a larger reigon of some 300,000,000 people. doubtless the Death toll will rise-but the black Death,it ain't.

If it all goes tits up in the coming year,I'll join the westboro baptist gimps.

gozunda

crockholm wrote: »

Deep breath.........only about 4500 people are dead at the moment, it is largely contained within 3 countries with a combined population of about 22,000,000,within a larger reigon of some 300,000,000 people. doubtless the Death toll will rise-but the black Death,it ain't...

The current outbreak of Ebola was first confirmed in early 2014. Despite the size of the countries involved the disease has spread across relatively large distances and as you said killed as estimated 4500 people. The death toll continues to rise.

Going back in history, It has been estimated that the Black Death reached the Crimea via Asia by the year 1343 (having possibly first emerged in and around 1338) and had spread to all of Europe by 1352. It therefore took more than 10 years for the plague to reduce the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million.

With a much larger world population and easier travel and transport I wonder what would the death toll be of another similar plague
...

ElizaT33

Very scary disease - but more scary the behavior of the "Powers that Be" - IMO they've their own agenda .....! I know, Conspiracy Theory, but it's SO NOT RIGHT to let this disease continue to be rampant in Africa - it's like a case of let them all die, and we'll be fine - SO NOT RIGHT!

Turtwig

Ebola isn't that similar plague. At least not a global one anyway. At the very least it needs to figure out a way to survive in our bodies longer and really it needs to become far more infectious.

I do wonder though what would happen if a plague occurred with really infectious disease. We are far more interconnected today than we were at the time of the black death.

ElizaT33 wrote: »

Very scary disease - but more scary the behavior of the "Powers that Be" - IMO they've their own agenda .....! I know, Conspiracy Theory, but it's SO NOT RIGHT to let this disease continue to be rampant in Africa - it's like a case of let them all die, and we'll be fine - SO NOT RIGHT!

That's the reality of poverty. Perhaps the greatest thing ebola has done is point out just how deprived some people in this world actually are. Fact is for parts of Africa this 'death rate' is rather normal, totally unacceptable. Most people just aren't aware of how many diseases and illnesses there are in third world countries. There's not a whole lot that can be done at this stage for Liberia. I haven't read up much on the other countries but I suspect there's a similar story there. It's horrific and galling that the outbreak was ignored for so long. Those nations have lost controls and it be more a case now of the virus steering its course rather than containment and treatment managing it.

ceadaoin.

ElizaT33 wrote: »

Very scary disease - but more scary the behavior of the "Powers that Be" - IMO they've their own agenda .....! I know, Conspiracy Theory, but it's SO NOT RIGHT to let this disease continue to be rampant in Africa - it's like a case of let them all die, and we'll be fine - SO NOT RIGHT!

Things are being done to stop it in Africa, it just hasn't been enough up to now. It seems like the international community are stepping up their efforts now so hopefully he situation can be turned around. It doesn't look good though.

So far it's the US who have been putting in most of the resources.

If you care about stopping it in Africa then you should donate to MSF.

Duggy747

ceadaoin. wrote: »

So far it's the US who have been putting in most of the resources.

Yet we still see people blaming the US for doing something, anything at all, during this. If they didn't, you'd be damn sure they'd be blamed and picked out for that too.

I know someone who's quite big into their conspiracy theories and thinks this strain is bullshít and was concocted up by the US (and the Jewish-controlled media, no less) to get the military into Africa to go up against the Chinese.

Unfortunately, he's an avid reader of Infowars and a quick google will show how sporadic and insanely inconsistent their "stories" on the topic are.

realweirdo

The spread is still limited with less than 10,000 infections. However, the spread is currently following an exponential pattern, which means it will be slow at the start and quicken relatively quickly.

So if we are posting here in a month ie 18th November, I'd expect there to be ~20,000 infections then. If its significantly less than that then the outbreak is gradually been brought under control. If its roughly that number, then the exponential model is still true, which is worrying.

ceadaoin.

Duggy747 wrote: »

Yet we still see people blaming the US for doing something, anything at all, during this. If they didn't, you'd be damn sure they'd be blamed and picked out for that too.

I know someone who's quite big into their conspiracy theories and thinks this strain is bullshít and was concocted up by the US (and the Jewish-controlled media, no less) to get the military into Africa to go up against the Chinese.

Unfortunately, he's an avid reader of Infowars and a quick google will show how sporadic and insanely inconsistent their "stories" on the topic are.

Exactly, no matter what the US does people will complain about it. Probably the same people would be complaining either way. They can't win.

According to the conspiracy theorists on one site I've briefly looked at - ebola doesn't exist. All the news reports are actors. Or it does exist and is being spread on purpose as part of a population cull. Or It does exist but it's not dangerous and the mainstream media are creating fear so that everyone will get a vaccine which will kill 80% of the population. It literally changes daily. Also all you need to cure it is some vitamin c and colloidal silver, and maybe a bit of garlic but the powers that be don't want anyone to know about that :rolleyes:

A_Sober_Paddy

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Exactly, no matter what the US does people will complain about it. Probably the same people would be complaining either way. They can't win.

According to the conspiracy theorists on one site I've briefly looked at - ebola doesn't exist. All the news reports are actors. Or it does exist and is being spread on purpose as part of a population cull. Or It does exist but it's not dangerous and the mainstream media are creating fear so that everyone will get a vaccine which will kill 80% of the population. It literally changes daily. Also all you need to cure it is some vitamin c and colloidal silver, and maybe a bit of garlic but the powers that be don't want anyone to know about that :rolleyes:

Well Vitamin C and Garlic both have anti-Viral properties...but thats not to say i agree with the tinfoil hat brigade...

Turtwig

A_Sober_Paddy wrote: »

Well Vitamin C and Garlic both have anti-Viral properties...but thats not to say i agree with the tinfoil hat brigade...

Loads of things have anti-viral properties. The question is whether the viruses matter. In the case of vitamin c? The answers a big fat NO*.

The supplements industry is like big Pharma also a behemoth. The major difference being that's it mostly unregulated. A manufacturer can spout whatever claim they like and it doesn't have be consistently tested or checked. It's one thing that also baffles me about naturalistic based conspiracy theories. By all means be skeptical of any company or agency but don't leave your skepticism at the door for 'natural' medicine and supplements.


*The more pedantic answer would be there's little reliable data to suggest so at this time.

gozunda

Turtwig wrote: »

Ebola isn't that similar plague. At least not a global one anyway. At the very least it needs to figure out a way to survive in our bodies longer and really it needs to become far more infectious.

outbreaks of the Black Death / bubonic plague took years to become truly global. The current Ebola epidemic is only 9 months old. So no we can't directly compare at this point in time.

Modern bubonic plague has a mortality rate of 30–75% whilst Ebola historically appeared to have anything between 25-90% mortality rate and a 50-70% mortality rate based on current epidemic figures.

It is of note that on average of those that contract modern bubonic plague, death if it occurs generally follows in 8 days. Of Ebola - death if it occurs, is typically six to sixteen days after symptoms first appear.

Ebola as a longer epidemic or even as yet untested pandemic - we really have no idea how Ebola will behave as we are only nine months into the current epidemic. It's not truly global - yet. Only time will tell.

Turtwig wrote: »

..I do wonder though what would happen if a plague occurred with really infectious disease. We are far more interconnected today than we were at the time of the black death.

FullblownRose

A checkout lady in the shop seemed to have a cold and the customer ahead of me stood about as far back from her as he could and was very obvious about not touching her hand when making his payment. Maybe he's very germ-averse anyway but it crossed my mind...:/