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General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Nmaro Makari on 01 Aug 2014, 05:16
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Sierra Leone Declares Ebola Public Health Emergency (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28579890)
Mother Nature is back with a vengeance it seems.
Thoughts, news, debate, bring it all here.
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The people treating the infected are sometimes falling victim to the disease themselves, with fatal consequences. That's dedication...
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WHO doesn't think it'll spread outside of the region but it is likely to persist for awhile. The customary treatment of the dead (lots of physical contact) in the area is being educated against with some success and that's helping with infection. Doctors are also being deployed to help in care. Ebola has no cure but it can be treated very much like the flu, if you can help the body while the virus just runs its course survival isn't impossible.
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http://www.peoplesworld.org/cuba-leads-in-the-fight-against-ebola-in-west-africa/
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Humans are interesting creatures in how we collectively respond to perceived sensational risk versus actual risk.
I think more people die every year choking on peanuts, for example.
:/
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To play the devil's advocate, there isn't really much we can do about people choking on peanuts. I mean, better education (Heimlich maneuver, etc) will help stop deaths, but that won't en people accidentally choking on a peanut.
Ebola, on the other hand, is something we can contain through known measures.
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There's also, you know, the contagiousness aspect. If someone choking on peanuts started to spread to those around them, holy shit that would be a news story.
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There's also, you know, the contagiousness aspect. If someone choking on peanuts started to spread to those around them, holy shit that would be a news story.
This would've been funnier during the Bush administration, let me tell you.
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There's also, you know, the contagiousness aspect. If someone choking on peanuts started to spread to those around them, holy shit that would be a news story.
This would've been funnier during the Bush administration, let me tell you.
There is an Axis of Evil out there. Peanuts. Pretzels. Cashews. And they mean to do us harm.
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To play the devil's advocate, there isn't really much we can do about people choking on peanuts. I mean, better education (Heimlich maneuver, etc) will help stop deaths, but that won't en people accidentally choking on a peanut.
Ebola, on the other hand, is something we can contain through known measures.
I think Silas could have used another example, like measles, that kills approximately 500.000 people per year.
Ebola is "nothing of the same scale", it's just impressive and sensational as it is an extremely nasty virus that kills dirty and quickly, without any proper remedy. However, it actually only kills one out of two infected (which is quite big), but can be reduced to 10% with proper treatment. Which is still big, but considering how bad it is at contaminating and expanding while killing very quickly... : you have to be in physical contact with infected people, and especially with bodily fluids. Which means a near to zero chance of expanding if proper quarantine measures coupled with proper medication are taken. I mean, does the infected patient that got back in the US spread the thing ? Or the one in France more recently ? Nope.
Ebola is mostly a third world problem that could be resolved with proper measures, like most diseases that we consider outdated in our countries and still ravaging some third world ones.
Edit : reading the last news, a lot of critics are calling Sierra Leone on what they consider to be more of a PR stunt than a really effective series of measures, that are overall badly applied or not seriously enough.
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Lyn is right, perhaps the wrong metaphor.
The point is we are worried about and have disproportionate responses to things that kill people in sensational ways, vs things that kill people in less dramatic media ways.
We raise more money for Breast Cancer than Heart Disease, when Heart Disease kills 600k a year and gets $50m in funding, and breast cancer kills 50k and gets $250m in funding.
Deaths from auto accidents, alcohol, tobacco, preventable sorts of things and their funding and response versus things like terrorism and their disproportionate response.
People are worried about shark attacks and dying in airplanes, even those things kill so few people a year as to be statistically insignificant.
Anyway not that Ebola isn't scary and going to bring a lot of misery to people, but the media is being irresponsible as usual with coverage.
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Ebola is spread via contact with bodily fluids. So does HIV and hepatitis.
There are (for us Americans), over 1.2 million people in our country that are HIV positive. There are about 3.2 million with Hepatitis-C. There are maybe two or three (that's just a 2 or 3. Not million. Count it on one hand please.) with Ebola, or at least less than ten confirmed cases. If we're generous, we can add another 20 unconfirmed.
Have you suddenly contracted HIV yet? What about Hepatitis-C? No? Well you probably won't suddenly contract Ebola. As it turns out Ebola is actually much LESS contagious than the other two. It's hard to contract, even if you are exposed, as long as you follow basic sanitary practice like washing your hands.
BUT WHAT IF IT MUTATES TO BECOME AIRBORNE?!!?
Yeah no, highly unlikely. Viruses mutate almost constantly. All viruses do that. How many of them have suddenly become airborne just to fuck with us? Is HIV airborne, despite having a far greater prevelence? What about Hep-C again? No, huh? So what makes Ebola special?
Maybe this would be a good place for Arista to chime in, since she's actually a Biologist. Maybe not a virologist, but closer than me nonetheless.
How likely is it that Ebola will suddenly mutate to become the next airborne scare? Because, to be honest... that's extremely rare from what I understand.
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The article I read on that recently told that probabilities for that to happen were extremely low. Except if it goes pulmonary or through aerosols caused by some treatments (which has been demonstrated on animal models).
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"How likely is it that Ebola will suddenly mutate to become the next airborne scare? Because, to be honest... that's extremely rare from what I understand."
Someone never played Pandemic.
What? It's a highly accurate outbreak simulator, surely.
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Ebola is spread via contact with bodily fluids. So does HIV and hepatitis.
There are (for us Americans), over 1.2 million people in our country that are HIV positive. There are about 3.2 million with Hepatitis-C. There are maybe two or three (that's just a 2 or 3. Not million. Count it on one hand please.) with Ebola, or at least less than ten confirmed cases. If we're generous, we can add another 20 unconfirmed.
Have you suddenly contracted HIV yet? What about Hepatitis-C? No? Well you probably won't suddenly contract Ebola. As it turns out Ebola is actually much LESS contagious than the other two. It's hard to contract, even if you are exposed, as long as you follow basic sanitary practice like washing your hands.
BUT WHAT IF IT MUTATES TO BECOME AIRBORNE?!!?
Yeah no, highly unlikely. Viruses mutate almost constantly. All viruses do that. How many of them have suddenly become airborne just to fuck with us? Is HIV airborne, despite having a far greater prevelence? What about Hep-C again? No, huh? So what makes Ebola special?
Maybe this would be a good place for Arista to chime in, since she's actually a Biologist. Maybe not a virologist, but closer than me nonetheless.
How likely is it that Ebola will suddenly mutate to become the next airborne scare? Because, to be honest... that's extremely rare from what I understand.
While I get the point you are making, the HIV comparison is a bad one. HIV is spread through very specific bodily fluids, not all of them. You can make out for hours on end with an HIV+ person and never become exposed unless you both have open wounds in your mouths. I just had to point out the difference. Carry on.
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HIV doesn't generally make those normally internal bodyfluids migrate to horrible places they don't belong in quite as vigorous a manner either.
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HIV doesn't generally make those normally internal bodyfluids migrate to horrible places they don't belong in quite as vigorous a manner either.
Neither does HIV kill untreated victims in a space of several days. Also, Ebola has a history of showing up for some time, vanish from the radar for a very long time and then suddenly resurfacing some place else again years later. Ebola is the sort of virus that people will make movies of.
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I just have to add that the reason why it is getting the deserved attention is because of the all-important word 'epidemic.' If it continues at the expected rate (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/10/ebola-spreading-like-wildfire-sierra-leone-201410213832994348.html), things could get pretty horrific.
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Ebola case reported in USA. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/30/cdc-confirms-first-case-of-ebola-in-the-u-s/ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/30/cdc-confirms-first-case-of-ebola-in-the-u-s/)
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My aunt works for the CDC, she's more worried by stuff like bean sprouts and unwashed salads than ebola.
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My aunt works for the CDC, she's more worried by stuff like bean sprouts and unwashed salads than ebola.
I tell you flu season is scarier. Old people and young children die from that shite every year!
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I'm not saying we have much to fear elsewhere, but Sierra Leone could get terrible. And yes, if you only think it is notable if it may threaten you - unwashed salad is more important.
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I'm not even sure why I read this thread, this sort of stuff i usually skip -- maybe I sensed someone mentioned my name. ( for srs.)
Anyway. Let's talk about virsues! Not INTELLIGENT VIRSUES such as that pretty hilarious game in which a human being is controlling the mutation of the virus as it spreads across the globe (Thje entirety of Canada is now infecting with Goat Fever!). A virsu doesnt get all MAD that it didnt kill its host, realistically they want their hosts alive.
My speciality is radiation oncology; specifically pharmacokinetics, endlessly cutting slides on a cryostat, proteomics, western blots, immunohistochemistry, monoclonal antibody production, etc. I never really messed much with viruses. But let's take a look, cause the internet is cool, and it might dust off my archaic B.S. degree a little.
First: HIV is a retrovirus, which is different than your average virus. So can't really compare them much at all. But lets do it anyway. HIV will become inviable in the presence of air - oxygen. It's actually pretty hard to work with HIV, I know this cause the people downstairs had an HIV lab, end up with inviable retrovirus half the time. that's why it's "certain body fluids" -- not really. Its if it gets exposed to the air it'll die. So like an HIV patient spitting on you for example which is the usual omg threat, they'd need to spit like .. into your bloodstream. That's why it's difficult to spread. and air exposure is death to the retrovirus so that's why it is usually shared needles (as ppl draw some blood up and injects and redraw, etc, no air is getting into that needle chamber but the blood from the first person finding their vein (the flash) is still inside to some extent), sexual intercourse which is specifically absorbing membranes in such close contact that no air is in between them (throw salt on it - if you scream and cry and want to die instantly, thats an absorbing membrane. please, do no throw salt on your junk or femmejunk. just dont.) -- and even sex isnt a guaranteed "catch".
Ebola from what I'm finding so far, well, hemmoragic fevers of any kind is a bitch, there's a few types... if you look at this sheet from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/ebola-factsheet.pdf You'll see my specialities would only be able to find ebola after you survived from it, or died from it ;)
States pretty flat out that is not airborne. I have always had this sort of a hole in my knowledge about the concept of an "airborne" virus anyway. A cold for example isn't actually AIRBORNE. You touched something that someone sneezed on, or they sneezed on you and eventually the viral particle makes its way to a mucosa... virsues dont have wings, they dont fly around on the wind or any such nonsense, the best I'm imagining and I have NOT researched this - is that the virus develops the capacity to remain viable while not immersed in a biological fluid - in other words, it can dry out, get wet again, and still be able to replicate. this wouldn't be a simple flipswitch genetic mutation but a full-length panorama of changes to make it a completely different virus when it's done. It's basically changing the entire conformation to make it armored. That's a lot of DNA coding that needs to land exactly in the right place. As often as viruses mutate to get meaner they also mutate to turn into little wusses or die out. Evolution does not always go UP.
Even then, an airborne virus (as we define them, such as colds and flus, etc) are preventable by following universal precautions if you wanna be really paranoid and wear a hospital mask around, and wear nitrile gloves all the time, or, generally the best way that doesn't make you like a freak is to just wash your hands and don't repeatedly touch your face during the day, etc. We had never spread a single cold in our lab if someone got sick -- not cause we were all in masks and gloves, but because the simple act of wiping down shared phones and door-knobs once a day or so and washing your hands before eating lunch or going out for a smoke pretty much ensured no one else got sick.
Now if you don't want to get ebola don't go near those couple of people who got it and start licking them, and you should be pretty safe. :P
And yes - unwashed salad is more dangerous. Its damp leaves in a bag from another country (usually) with different natural bacterial and viral flora than you're used to. They could also allegedly contain frogs. Most of us are usually already carrying viral packages, but we're asymptomatic because our bodies can fight them. A little sniffling cold I had that didn't even need OTC NyQuil got my husband (at that time my fiance') so sick with ashmatic bronchitis that he almost ended up in hospital during a 3 month visit to the States - and he the the usual man-type who never got sick at home. When he first moved here the first year he had about 3-4 majro colds adjusting to the "local flora", and every time I go to england, it is pretty much guaranteed I'm getting a cold, which is why i flu vaccinate every year now, so I can at least skip that horror story. My immune system is already beat to shit from my body being in chronic stress/pain, even a bus-ride locally if I dont use hand santizer after touching the hand-holds in the bus afterwards means I'm getting someone's cold.