Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I've Seen This Movie, It Doesn't End Well

Ebola outbreak: Size of problem has been 'vastly' underestimated, says WHO

The size of the deadly Ebola outbreak appears to have been �vastly� underestimated, the World Health Organisation has warned.

The United Nations body said the disease was continuing to spread with reports of 1,975 cases and 1,069 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

However it added in a statement issued on Thursday: �Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...y-underestimated-claims-who-9670432.html

Affected areas that have been cordoned off... nobody knows how many folks in those isolated areas have the disease, how many deaths. Food supplies are running out, WHO and other agencies are attempting air drops of food and other supplies into these areas. Sheee-it. More folks will die of starvation than Ebola.

Yeah, it was real smart to bring it into the United States where it was previously unknown.

Don't Panic... but

Airborn Transmission of Ebola?

Oh cripes jiminy....

It would be obvious to anyone who has spent ten minutes over there that....

1) Many folks don't ever make it to a hospital ergo the impact of doctors or the lack thereof on the death rate will be minor.

2)In regions of high population density (most of West Africa) there is no way of accurately measuring how many people are infected with, let alone exposed to, the disease.

3) Unless you build a wall, or a fence, there is no way of restricting people to a sizeable area. Folks have been routinely crossing borders on their own hook forever over there, in ain't like those countries are fenced in.

This applies in spades where the disease has a longer incubation time, such that folks can look and feel healthy while all the time carrying the disease.

The MOST effective way of addressing this disease would be mass vaccinations, the way smallpox was eradicated. Vaccinations are the facet of Western medicine that has been most applicable and accepted over there, being relatively inexpensive and at the same time not very accessible to local quack "doctors" in the same way that antibiotics and malaria medications have been. But then maybe I'm biased; I worked on a travelling vaccination team out of a local mission hospital.

I will say though that a brief perusal of the number of people crippled as toddlers by poliomyelitis and the attendant limp (in the case of the fortunate) or withered and dwarfed legs (most) will attest to the number of people who don't ever get vaccinated, even against that easily preventable disease.

As to the famine question; yep, that was my first concern as well. People in urban areas are not growing all their own food, and many poor folks, especially children, would have been living on the thin edge of malnutrition even before this outbreak.

ANYTHING that disrupts the supply of and/or causes the price of foodstuffs to increase in these areas will have dire consequences.

Birdwatcher

Very brave healthcare workers over there.

It has long been my contention, especially since living in the sticks in West Africa, that there's going to be quite a few surprises on Judgement Day.

That statement is completely false.

We have been studying Ebola in the US since the seventies.

Here's a reading list for you. When you have completed it you might still be ignorant, but you'll have no reason for making blatantly false statements.

1. The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett This book should be required reading for every 8th grader.

2. The Demon In The Freezer, Richard Preston The story of Smallpox and governments.

3. Poisoned, Jeff Benedict. An illustration of the consequences of being so literally s-h-i-t eating ignorant.

4. Betrayal of Trust, Laurie Garret. A relentless cataloging of how we got this stupid. Should be required reading with a comprehension test prior to allowing anyone to vote.

5. Six Modern Plagues, Mark Walters. The story of how we keep doing it to ourselves.

The only thing The Hot Zone is really good for is to illustrate that in virtually every account of every incident, the best experts we have did not get religion until they or another researcher was exposed.

Read them in the order listed. Allow three times what you think you'll need to complete the Garrett books because the footnotes are the most critical part of the works.

I was thinking more along the lines of "stupid".

When less than one per cent of transmissions can be attributed to other than direct contact I think perspective is warranted.

and lets face it. With over 100 health care workers now infected, and folks, these are the ones with the coveralls, the masks, the gloves..........
If THEY get it, then the rest of us are just a virus recipient waiting to happen.

However limited relative to the whole population the outbreak may be at present, its fair to say that the longer it smolders, the more chance there is that more easily-transmissible mutant forms will appear.

Really? How many cases of Ebola have there been in the US prior to Obamanation bringing these two in?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking those doctors are not trained in epidemiology. They are. They also know that documenting who is infected and where they are is critical to defining the epidemic. They've done well keeping an accurate count in the past. Isolation (quarantine) has stopped every outbreak thus far and may yet stop this one. Quarantine is certainly the best tool we have at this time.

Vaccinations would work, but for the fact that we don't have a vaccine.

The stuff we should be worrying about is why this has lasted nine months. Why it hasn't blown completely out of control. This is different than in the past. It's in a different area.
There are big differences in the mortality rate from place to place.

The fact that we've had the virus in this country for forty years almost without causing a single case ought to be something even stupid person could grasp, but maybe I am giving credit where it's not due.

Miles, history proves that if you give humans enough time to do something incredibly stupid and careless, they will. Why take the chance with these deadly viruses?

Well, first off, we as humans are morally and ethically obligated to do what we can.

Second, there is nothing unique about us that prevents Ebola from infecting us.

Third, there really aren't a lot of viral diseases confined by any particular limitations to any particular part of the planet.

The best practical reasons though is that had we not gone to Africa in the 70s to work this virus, we'd know virtually nothing about controlling it. We are dealing with a poorly educated, notably corrupt part of the world and keeping Ebola locked down to there requires expenditure of blood and treasure that will make Iraq look like small potatoes, and will ultimately fail even more miserably. We did try travel ban with Aids, remember? What started as a localized problem in equatorial Africa is now a world wide disease.

I suppose we have the weapons that we could use to vaporize/irradiate the entire outbreak area well enough that we could control this outbreak that way, but that seems kinda messy.

We aren't taking a chance if we help IMO. Either we do or we don't. Either choice we will have to deal with the virus. Maybe a little later if we put every effort into isolating ourselves, but inevitably we will have to deal with it.

Think of it like this... Many people today don't think of Smallpox as something as scary as Ebola. In reality, Smallpox is 1000 times worse, it has a very low threshold for infection, very few particles and you're in deep doo-doo. It is incredibly capable in the air, it is a ready made weapon, no sophisticated weaponizing necessary like with Anthrax. It kills an equal or greater percentage of infected as Ebola. An outbreak of Smallpox in the US would produce more dead than we can bury/cremate. There are literally truckloads of Smallpox unaccounted for by Russia, not to mention who else we know possessed it. That's the main reason that the remaining stocks have not been destroyed.

There are a number of bad like Ebola endemic diseases. There are a lot of diseases that kill much larger numbers of people every year. There are a lot of diseases which are much harder to contain. We do work with them and the pathogens causing them, and we do it all the time.

We cannot bury our heads in the sand out of our own self interest. Medically we are obligated to share our knowledge and trained people to help. Ethically, even were we at war with them we need to help out. If you want something to worry about, get a copy of Poisoned and read it. Then come ask me, DocRocket or Sponxx about what really goes on in a feedlot cow's gut. Dumb as TRH is, I could teach him the math to calculate accurately when we will face unimaginably more dangerous condition than exist in the heart of the current Ebola epidemic area in a matter of minutes.

Answer the question.

The question was answered, but I don't believe you have the intellectual wherewithal to comprehend it was answered, much less understand the answer.

Do me the favor, then, of repeating your answer. Again, the question was: How many cases of Ebola have occurred in the US prior to the two that were brought in by Obamanation? I'm not talking about samples of the germs involved, so don't pretend that's what you thought the question was asking.