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Significant Ebola outbreak

What I don't quite understand is apparently there is no cure for ebola and in Africa 90% of people who contract it die, but it is thought that a much lower percentage would die in Europe or America. Does anyone know why this might be?
 
weltweit said:
What I don't quite understand is apparently there is no cure for ebola and in Africa 90% of people who contract it die, but it is thought that a much lower percentage would die in Europe or America. Does anyone know why this might be?
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IRRC from the BBC report on it yesterday its that fewer people would die, not a lower percentage of those already infected. Something to do with better healthcare availability, easier transmission of advice to the community that would prevent infection in the first place, and people being willing to seek out medical help when they fall ill.
 
weltweit said:
What I don't quite understand is apparently there is no cure for ebola and in Africa 90% of people who contract it die, but it is thought that a much lower percentage would die in Europe or America. Does anyone know why this might be?
Click to expand...
Is it possible that nutrition and other health issues would be a factor, given that recovery basically depends solely on your own body's immune response?
 
weltweit said:
What I don't quite understand is apparently there is no cure for ebola and in Africa 90% of people who contract it die, but it is thought that a much lower percentage would die in Europe or America. Does anyone know why this might be?
Click to expand...

The 90% figure is a bit of journalistic laziness.

First, people who get treatment (most essentially, I think, intravenous fluids) have at least twice the chance of surviving.

Second, these Centers for Disease Control figures show, on the face of it, 50% mortality in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Take with extreme caution, because (a) these are not ideal data-gathering environments and (b) anyway, the "known and suspected cases" will include people who are going to die.

toggle said:
dosen't it become less virulent as you move more generations away from the origin point of infection?
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That happens to viruses in general - over hundreds or thousands of generations. Hasn't happened to HIV yet.

alsoknownas said:
Is it possible that nutrition and other health issues would be a factor, given that recovery basically depends solely on your own body's immune response?
Click to expand...

I don't know: is Ebola one of those diseases, like SARS, where death is partly caused by one's own immune system reaction? If so, sophisticated medicine might be able to temper that.
 
agricola said:
IRRC from the BBC report on it yesterday its that fewer people would die, not a lower percentage of those already infected. Something to do with better healthcare availability, easier transmission of advice to the community that would prevent infection in the first place, and people being willing to seek out medical help when they fall ill.
Click to expand...

Isn't a lot of the problem of this disease spreading down to lack of understanding among the local people about how you can catch it, and what precautions you should take?

Their traditions around death and funerals totally clash with the scientific fact that the body of an Ebola victim should not be touched or handled by anyone unless they are wearing biohazard suits.

If people in an area are generally not educated to even understand what a virus is, or how infection happens, it must be hard to explain or justify procedures for preventing the spread of the disease.
 
Didn't the WHO issue a statement saying the disease only becomes contagious in the final stages and therefore the person would likely be too ill to board a flight? It's not that reassuring anyway, if true, because someone with the disease lying dormant could board a flight and then become ill once in a different country.
 
Citizen66 said:
Didn't the WHO issue a statement saying the disease only becomes contagious in the final stages...
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If - hoping - it's exclusively transmitted by bodily effusions, that would be what you'd expect*

Citizen66 said:
and therefore the person would likely be too ill to board a flight? It's not that reassuring anyway, if true, because someone with the disease lying dormant could board a flight and then become ill once in a different country.
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As far as spread goes, yes :(


* In this case there is evolutionary pressure for it either to get milder or to become infectious before the host is debilitated. Either way, it gets to infect more people. The hope and the danger probably take decades or more to play out...[/QUOTE]
 
My knowledge of how viruses evolve/mutate is limited but that shit sounds scary. Evolutionary pressure ? I guess it's something I'd relish reading about then wish I hadn't.
 
Citizen66 said:
Evolutionary pressure ? I guess it's something I'd relish reading about then wish I hadn't.
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Nah, it's just jargon, caused by it being easier to tell stories with purposive players - though evolution is the opposite of that.

On the bright side: Viruses that get milder - so their hosts can wander about spreading them longer - produce more viruses than do those that knock their hosts over before they can infect anyone. So over many generations they predominate.

On the "oh fuck" side: Viruses that can be transmitted while their hosts are still wandering about produce more viruses and...
 
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Its seems so at the start...... But the end is concerning
He expressed confidence in “standard barrier nursing and infection control practices.” But surely if anyone could prevent transmission through these means, Sierra Leone’s top Ebola doctor, a leading Liberian internist, and the head of an Ebola clinic would have been able to do so. Instead, they became infected. Two of the three are now dead, and the third remains in serious condition.
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Tankus said:
Its seems so at the start...... But the end is concerning
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The main interest here is that although they would have known everything about the disease, they will have been so over exposed that they hoik their potential for contracting it up somewhat.
 
madamv said:
The main interest here is that although they would have known everything about the disease, they will have been so over exposed that they hoik their potential for contracting it up somewhat.
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That's one of the things that I meant about her lawerly approach to evidence. Lawyers don't do probability, or any kind of statistical argument.
 
So what are the risks in bringing the two aid workers with ebola back to the USA?
Presumably this is not without risk?
 
The Guardian reports one of the doctors treating the man who died in Nigeria testing positive.

But I was more startled at this, which I haven't seen before but should have guessed:

Attempts to contain the disease were hampered in Liberia and Sierra Leone as faith healers and crowded churches sheltered Ebola victims whom they claimed to be able to cure. Both countries eventually made such action a crime punishable with jail terms.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/04/doctor-nigeria-ebola-victim-lagos
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Bloody religious :mad:
 
Telegraph reckons the American doctor is doing well on monoclonal antibody treatment:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...84/Ebola-new-serum-raises-hopes-for-cure.html

Also that Nigeria has four cases now.

So what about the "ZMapp" monoclonal antibodies ? Here's the San Diego local business news: http://timesofsandiego.com/business/2014/08/04/local-biotech-increasing-production-zmapp-ebola-drug/

And the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/the-secret-ebola-treatment/375525/

All the reports I can see are detail-lite.

Ah: the LA Times has comment:

"I would be ecstatic if [this] product helped save these people, but I also need to be extremely cautious," said Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

"To say the whole thing cleared up in an hour, that doesn't happen in reality," Geisbert said. "That's like something that happens in a movie."

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-serum-20140804-story.html
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Caution about the announcements, then: we're dealing with a company with an unlicensed scarce miracle product to sell, and a Christian organisation that presumably believes in miracles, willing to buy.
 
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A Liberian view:

Cartoon%20final_81.jpg
 
Interesting that one of the new drugs is extracted from tobacco - albeit Nicotiana bethamiana a native plant of Australia and indulged in by the locals before the more conventional type was made available.

It's apparently a standard laboratory "standard" plant with a fully-mapped genome - like arabidopsis thaliana.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkr...rum-small-biopharma-the-army-and-big-tobacco/

EDIT :-

Manufactured using GM.
 
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