Ebola Outbreak

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
It is out of control in those regions, not in the rest of the world. WHO estimates of 1.4 million are not for a worldwide epidemic, that is just for the affected area of West Africa. And, to be honest, if the West had taken this seriously earlier (e.g. Obama has now sent the US Army to help build quarantined medical facilities but I'm sure something like that could have been done months ago when it started) then it might not have reached this proportion. Culture is a problem, too, since people there are trying to avoid having their dead cremated, a necessary precaution since exposing burial workers to the disease is not desirable.
 
I believe the bubonic plague was spread by droplet transmission......want to test that theory with ebola on the rest of the world?

Probably ancient North American Indians didn't get the plague either, but right now we have major airline arteries that have the potential to infuse this disease anywhere.
 
I don't think it would be prejudiced to have it in place for Liberia, Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea. Based on my understanding of areas hit. I don't know about quarantining everyone out of Guinea, as I don't think it's the entire country that has an issue.
What about layovers? Hopefully there aren't many in that region right now, but I don't think quarantining anyone who had a layover there is the best use of resources. When Nigeria had it's outbreak, I think it was too small at the time for them to have been included in something that drastic.

I'm not sure of the current situation in the Congo.
 
Waterfall said:
I believe the bubonic plague was spread by droplet transmission......want to test that theory with ebola on the rest of the world?

Probably ancient North American Indians didn't get the plague either, but right now we have major airline arteries that have the potential to infuse this disease anywhere.
Click to expand...
I thought fleas from rodents were the major culprit. Sanitation back then also sucked. There have been isolated cases of the plague in the last few decades, and it never spread far.

I don't think there were ancient North American Indians. India was too far away from North America for them to travel in ancient times.
 
Waterfall said:
I believe the bubonic plague was spread by droplet transmission......want to test that theory with ebola on the rest of the world?.
Click to expand...

No, it didn't. It's carried by fleas that live on rats. Better sanitation is what stopped it from being the threat is used to be, not quarantines. We still get cases in the US Southwest (invasive rats brought it here so you are probably right that the First Nations didn't get it until we arrived) by the way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague#Cause
 
The plague infection also includes droplet transmission when it develops a pneumonic plague stage.....correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Waterfall said:
The plague infection also includes droplet transmission when it develops a pneumonic plague stage.....correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it seemed like you were insinuating that was why the epidemic was so bad, and that's not the case, droplets weren't a major factor in it's spread. No one here is debating that Ebola can be transmitted by droplets from bodily fluids. The risk to others is much smaller than if it were airborne.
 
ChemGal said:
Yes, but it seemed linitial causske you were insinuating that was why the epidemic was so bad, and that's not the case, droplets weren't a major factor in it's spread. No one here is debating that Ebola can be transmitted by droplets from bodily fluids. The risk to others is much smaller than if it were airborne.
Click to expand...
I use the bubonic plague to demonstrate that fleas may be the initiaI cause of transmission for bubonic plague but it can devlop into a septicemic plague or a pneumonic plague stage also from the droplet transmission as it is passed to humans. Right now do we know the initial cause of ebola? Fruit bats? What we are seeing are it's developing symptoms and possibly increasing modes of transmission.
 
And droplets ARE airborne.....they can travel three or four meters through the air from coughs and sneezes. They just aren't classified as airborne they are a droplet transmission.
 
I heard a story on CBC last week about volunteers coming to help with the dead victims of Ebola in a remote village. They were attacked. Apparently there is a belief in some of the villages that Ebola is spread by clorine. Thus when the volunteers come to wipe down everything, and place body in body bag, the villagers fear volunteers are spreading ebola. Education is certainly part of the answer.

The story also said that dead bodies are particularly prone to transmit Eboli.
 
Waterfall said:
And droplets ARE airborne.....they can travel three or four meters through the air from coughs and sneezes. They just aren't classified as airborne they are a droplet transmission.
Click to expand...
It's the latter sentence that's important in distinguishing the difference. Much closer contact is needed for transmission than for those diseases that are classified as having airborne transmission.
 
I read an article a while ago about a doctor in Nigeria who survived Ebola.
http://www.thecable.ng/how-i-survived-ebola-2
I think this is the same one I read - I just quickly glanced through it.
Looking at the conditions there versus here, it's apparent to me why health care workers are getting sick over there and why the death rate is so high. Remember, this is a country that was not hit hard by it either, in many other places clinics are overrun shortly after opening, hospitals have shut down.
 
Tabitha said:
The story also said that dead bodies are particularly prone to transmit Eboli.
Click to expand...

Which is why they are cremating remains which is also causing upset. Public safety sometimes has to trump cultural practices, though.
 
Some of the superstitions in Western Africa are quite deeply help. Unfortunately, even with the education campaigns many believe people are sick because of magic, evil spirits, etc. and not because of the Ebola virus.

From what I've heard, some of the more successful education tactics involve educating people in North America who have family in West Africa, and getting them to spread the information. It's seen as more trustworthy.

I'm not sure about the truth to what's more effective, but the distrust is certainly a big problem.
 
It's at moments like these that I despair that humanity will survive to evolve into a logical creature.

When education is so lacking that a population cannot understand the nature and properties of chlorine bleach in fighting infection, when their innate instinct to learn has been so suppressed by wyrd cultural/tribal systems, I don't even know how you get to 'here' from 'there'.
 
There is still a strong belief in some Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities that cremation eliminates the possibility of participating in the resurrection, so please don't use the word "superstitious" unless you are willing to apply it to everyone opposed to cremation. It is definitely a cultural and sometimes religious belief. As for the difficulty of transmission, HIV is only transmissible through bodily fluids, and it has succeeded in being a terrifying epidemic. Of course the length of time of being infectious and appearance of symptoms are major differences.
 
jimkenney12 said:
There is still a strong belief in some Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities that cremation eliminates the possibility of participating in the resurrection, so please don't use the word "superstitious" unless you are willing to apply it to everyone opposed to cremation..
Click to expand...

I have a comment on this but I'll put it in R&F because it is more about the issue of "what is superstitious" than it is about Ebola.
 
Tabitha said:
I heard a story on CBC last week about volunteers coming to help with the dead victims of Ebola in a remote village. They were attacked. Apparently there is a belief in some of the villages that Ebola is spread by clorine. Thus when the volunteers come to wipe down everything, and place body in body bag, the villagers fear volunteers are spreading ebola. Education is certainly part of the answer.

The story also said that dead bodies are particularly prone to transmit Eboli.
Click to expand...
I wonder if because we're so far away (at the moment) we fail to comprehend the human aspect in all of this. Imagine a wagon coming down the street or a flatbead truck, and the person on it telling us to throw our son or daughter's body on top of other bodies because there just arent enough ambulances. The children we nurtured and cared for, being tossed on a cart like a sack of potatoes and possibly tossed onto other bodies.

Bring out your dead......hearbreaking in any culture
 
I heard that the man in Dallas was infected by helping to carry an elderly grandmother to the hospital while in Liberia. There is a human element - she was a human being, an elder, crying for help, not just a live virus - so he actually did a brave and kind and respectful thing? Or not? We can upset but - what would we do?
 
Kimmio said:
I heard that the man in Dallas was infected by helping to carry an elderly grandmother to the hospital while in Liberia. There is a human element - she was a human being, an elder, crying for help, not just a live virus - so he actually did a brave and kind and respectful thing? Or not? We can upset but - what would we do?
Click to expand...
Where did you hear that? I've heard a pregnant women, at least one report said she was 19.

Help is needed, but she wasn't even accepted into the hospital, it was too full. First aid rules are to protect yourself first. Get some type of protection. If he caught it just from touching her, proper washing afterwards could have prevented that. It may have been an issue of droplets in the air though.

Getting on a plane after having direct contact with someone like that may not have been the most responsible thing to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top