Ebola Outbreak

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Canada and Ebola
  • To date, Canada has contributed $5,195,000 in support of humanitarian, security and public health interventions to address the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa.
  • There has never been a case of Ebola in Canada and the risk to Canadians remains very low.
  • The Ebola virus does not spread easily from person to person. It’s spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, not through casual contact.
  • The Government of Canada has a number of systems in place in Canada to identify and prevent the spread of serious infectious diseases like Ebola.
  • Any Canadians travelling abroad are encouraged to consult the Travel Health Notices on the Ebola outbreak.
— Source: Ministry of Health
 
I am surprised that they are using an experimental drug actually. Unless they are quite sure it is effective it seems unethical. Will the virus mutate! Will the people who survive get some thing else like leukaemia?........

It is a terrible disease and the conditions of the affected countries don't help with treatment. But it isn't very contagious, less than 1000 people have died which is a fraction of those who die of influenza annually.

I think it has become a media scare, like a movie, causing people to panic about nothing.
 
Ways of Skeptical Knowing—Six Essential Tools for Interpreting the News

  1. 1. What kind of content am I encountering?
  2. 2. Is the information complete? If not, what's missing?
  3. 3. Who or what are the sources and why should I believe them?
  4. 4. What evidence is presented and how was it tested or vetted?
  5. 5. What might be an alternative explanation or understanding?
  6. 6. Am I learning what I need?
 
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experimenting on already sick people is the only way of ever developing a vaccine, as nobody would willingly volunteer to test a vaccine.
 
That isn't true. There are many steps in the process before human experimentation.

Now, perhaps they have done most of the steps though the news said they were at stage 1 of 9. Who knows if that is true or not.

And perhaps lab tests have shown amazing progress.

But there is a process

In honesty, the easy thing to do is give out a vaccine. The hard thing to do is upgrade isolation techniques and cultural practices.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
i am sure there were and are lots of African health care workers infected. We just don't hear about them. They never get a chance to try a vaccine.
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Yet, there are discussions that it`s African health care workers who will get the vaccine to test it.
 
This virus is awful...and the reason it is spreading so fast is a socioeconomic issue not a medical one. That's the root of the problem I think because it otherwise would be easier to contain...and it's very sad and scarey. I keep worrying about it coming here (thanks to the news)...but we should be thinking of those there, suffering.

I hope they can get it better under control soon...and then the west, first world countries need to build some better health infrastructure for the people there...really help them long term.

I like to read about the few people that are recovering. I just read about a 6 year old girl..someone from doctors without borders spent a couple of days getting the girl to learn to trust her - she was very fearful of this thing in a protective suit (who could blame her?) Eventually she did and the girl is recovering - but she is orphaned. :(
 
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Kimmio, how do you reconcile the need to find a cure for Ebola, with your distrust of science and genetic engineering?

By your previous posts, shouldn't these scientists stop this work?
 
Is it unethical to say that ZMapp is available, but then say in the same breath that there's only enough for a very few? Would it be better to not make it known or go ahead and offer the small amount that is available?
 
Waterfall said:
Is it unethical to say that ZMapp is available, but then say in the same breath that there's only enough for a very few? Would it be better to not make it known or go ahead and offer the small amount that is available?
Click to expand...
And should media wait on a story, keep it in their pants, and potentially lose money, and the scoop to another competitor, to help humanity?
 
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Waterfall said:
Is it unethical to say that ZMapp is available, but then say in the same breath that there's only enough for a very few? Would it be better to not make it known or go ahead and offer the small amount that is available?
Click to expand...
I think it's fine for it's current status to be made public. The way it has been used for people with Ebola definitely falls into a grey area, and some issues feel down right wrong, like considering using it on Dr. Khan and not telling him about it. If he were unconscious or something, that would have been different.
 
This is where debate is - best practices, acceptable risks, approvals processes, allowable exceptions, production rates, etc.
 
This is interesting, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1999, eight people that contracted Ebola were given blood transfusions from people that had previously survived the Ebola infection. Out of the eight, seven survived.
 
The rights for ZMapp are owned and produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical from San Diego. The drug is derived from tobacco plants which are genetically engineered in Kentucky by another pharmaceutical company that is a subsidiary owned by tobacco giant Reynolds American.
 
Some good news, both of the Americans have been discharged. I'd link, but there's a bunch of them out there :)
 
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