BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:37 PM

one thing i worry about is it seems that cases so far have been in rural villages..not too high a concentration of people..perhaps they mostly walk rather than take buses...what happens when you have this loose in a heavily crowded slum area? Or a university? Or a big marketplace...or cities with lots of bus travelers...

Not just the exponential rate of transmission, but where do you quarantine? In a rural setting you can make clearings in the jungle or rope off the grassland and set up tents...where do you bury or burn people?

and you have many mobile people in parts of africa and other places this can travel to...miners, soldiers, possibly prostitutes, truck drivers..all of whom have been involved in aids transmittal..

and watch the animal transmission..sounds like primates, fruit bats, rodents, pigs can all be involved. If there is a big rat population, as there could be..I would assume it could be a host. Part of the problem is eating these animals, including the fruit bats.

A couple of things I read suggest that crushed garlic might help and also a particular detergent used to scrub pigs...could you not scrub humans as well? Also, could you have people wash in very mild bleach solutions, which will kill viruses..and they do use on corpses of those who died...some people are told by doctors here to take a mild bleach bath before surgery because of mrsa issues. also some essential oils, tea tree, I think thyme, clove perhaps, are antifungal.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:38 PM

by which I meant antiviral

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:47 PM

From npr interviews with on site reporters I was quite struck by how challenging the poverty is in Senegal in that they only have 4 ambulances to cover a 4 hour driving time area.

70 of 100 Liberian and WHO doctors have died from Ebola.

THE CDC is NOW able to afford to send 50 fifty more DISEASE WORKERS to Liberia Senegal and Mali.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 12:38 PM

They are bringing it voluntarily to the States. I am not at all sure that is a good idea. Not at all, at all, at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:14 PM

Ah, but NOW somebody will notice and start to care, Mrrzy - just so soon as White Folks - particularly AMERICANS! - are at risk or start to die.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:40 PM

Americian Doctor with Ebola Arrives in U S for Treatment

I'm down with a virus this week so reading about Ebola puts me in a rather delicate frame of mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 02:49 PM

A bit off topic:

The UK has never been completely malaria-free. The Hoo peninsula (my stamping ground) has long been the hotspot, and the vector was seen again here last year or the year before.

When did "body fluids" become referred to as "bodily fluids" and why? Is it not another example of a different viral infection? The infection of the worlds languages by American usage? "Bodily" is an adverb.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:10 PM

"When"?
About here.

Hospitals here have quarantine procedures and facilities set up to use them. There's less of a chance of it spreading.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:45 PM

Thanks for the Dr. Strangelove link. Hot Zone scared me rigid.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 06:20 AM

Looks as if the entire Sierra Leone "Commonwealth Games" team, currently in Scotland,will be asking to remain here and live in Britain,as they are all TERRIFIED of going back to their own country.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 01:32 PM

Yes, there have been issues with football, West Africa has a large presence there. Maybe that will make people take notice. I just had a fight with a good friend that resulted in our having to drink a lot to stop taking each other so seriously about the whole "second american has ebola" crap in the news...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 05:13 PM

I suspect that 1st world governmental resources were deployed very quickly at the start of this outbreak, and were at the ready for previous outbreaks that were not so widespread. Working for the government myself for most of my career (though not for the past 7 or so years) I perhaps have a different perspective from those who are certain that 1st world governments are the root of all evil and absolutely and never give a rat's ass about what happens elsewhere in the world unless it appears to immediately threaten the security or safety of a 1st world country, or unless it suddenly becomes 'news worthy' in the 1st world press.

Not defending, just suggesting a reality check.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 05:33 PM

Dear Messy.

I hope, you DO realize Hot Zone is fiction?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

But....so are Stoker, King, and Shelly.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 06:55 PM

This information from CDC might help.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 07:25 PM

Emirates has cancelled flights to Guinea.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:00 PM

Um, no, it' not, dear.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:03 PM

Double-checked - the Hot Zone is non, repeat, non-fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 09:55 AM

those who are certain that 1st world governments are the root of all evil

Hardly all, Janie - but certainly a significant amount.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 03:02 PM

Define "first world" pls - do you mean Africa? If not, what makes it first? New term for me...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 05:35 PM

The richest.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 07:23 PM

What's this I was told was on CNN? A cure?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 07:33 PM

Only 10 MERS cases reported...according to news sources in Oman...at the end of Eid.

My call was wrong on this one.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Any reports on what the "anti-capitalists" in China or Russia have contributed to Ebola cures/aid? Pravda reports nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: gnu
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 09:49 PM

Fuck yer full of yourself. Why can't you act like an adult? Tiny and dainty font in an odd colour? I have eyesight issues you twit. Hmmmm.... maybe you actually do make sense once in while but I just can't read it?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 10:48 PM

They said today that Ebola, scary as it is, is far less infectious than MERS and a number of other good stuff like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 04:30 AM

I heard on the radio recently that a few people have a natural immunity to ebola. I have also heard that a few people have a natural immunity to HIV, and that a few have a genetic resistance to bubonic plague.
The first thought that comes to mind is 'Are the same people/families resistant to all three diseases? The next thought, whether or not that is the case, is 'Could people with a genetic immunity provide the means of making a vaccine?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 07:42 PM

topsie, the report of natural immunity comes from research by IRD, a French institute specializing in overseas research.
The report is not new (2010). To see a translated summary, Google "337- Possible natural immunity to Ebola?"

It is suspected that they might have come in contact with the virus through saliva of fruit bats on their fruits. Bats are suspected of being the natural reservoir of the virus.
Labs in several countries are working towards a vaccine. How much this will be helped if at all by the high percentage (15%) of Gabonese with immunity, I don't know.

Emory University hospitals (Atlanta) is one research institution leading vaccine study. See http://news.edu/stories/2102/12/ebola_virus_protein_decoy/index.html (or Google "Ebola virus uses protein decoy to subvert the host immune response."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 09:23 PM

I think they are giving the repatriated Americans an experimental vaccine?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 09:43 PM

It's not a vaccine, but a serum/drug. There's an article on "ZMAb" in Newsweek. The first study, published in 2012, looked very promising.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 05:09 AM

Reports are identifying the sirum results as miraculous.

www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/04/ebola-san-diego-biotech/

(Another example of the resounding success of free enterprise and capitalism)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:09 AM

Surely it was all the fasting and praying that made them better?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:21 AM

Today I learn that USA and Russia still have stockpiles (if that is the right word ) of SMALLPOX , for Heavens sake !! WHY ??? As for Ebola ; those infected should stay where they are, not be jetted around the world , which is asking for trouble .Why do we never learn ??

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:31 AM

NPR interviewed a woman from Sierra Leone who says said to be of many Ebola deniers who claim big government is lying about Ebola and that there is no such thing, This kind of fear, ignorance and ill reasoned thinking reminds me of our own Bachman, Palin Overdrive of the extreme right wing.

Beyond the virus itself the enemy is also human behavior and customs that include handling the dead, kissing the dead and drinking the blood of the dead having the highest stature. Then there are the people scared of government response to Ebola that they run away if they are suspected of being sick.

Should even one infection unknowingly reaches Cairo, this African disease be responsible for a global pandemic. (insert De Nile comment here)

Experts in the field feel as though the current spread of Ebola is just a dress rehearsal for an eventual global pandemic.

The three synthetic anti viral agents combined into a serum may or may not be effective when scaled up to help millions. To protect billions however could take years.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:47 AM

There's no such thing as AIDS, either, Donuel. Or global warming.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:00 AM

The ebola hysteria in the U.S. media is meant to soften us up for a medical/military dictatorship. Curfews, quarantines, line up and take your shots. Don't fall for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:54 AM

Denying Ebola makes as much sense as denying evolution. Americans should be all for it.

I wish I were kidding.

Back to data, from google news' ebola department, headlines only: cases up to 1700 with 932 deaths is a .54 death rate which is great for ebola, you almost have an even chance of surviving this strain. Much better odds than usual.

But there are now 5 people in Lagos with it... but we haven't heard of anybody else from the plane getting sick, all those are health workers with direct contact with the one guy from the plane. And by now if they were going to get it they would have, so that's good.

I still worry most, selfishly, about my own folks in Abidjan, but it seems to not be there yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 10:57 AM

Also, I would like to note that my complaint with the US press is hardly that they are being alarmist, I find them being jingoistic. It's not that they are saying Ebola is here, run for the hills, but that they are saying 2 americans sick with ebola are headline-worthy and hundreds of Guineans, Sierra-Leonians and Liberians dead from it aren't.

I do not see anything in the mainstream press about how we should be scared. That's one of the reasons *I* am scared.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 11:33 AM

"It's not that they are saying Ebola is here, run for the hills... "

But, Mrzy, I think that is exactly what they are saying. It seems to me that the media is stepping a fine line between sensationalism and pragmatism. Who knows what the next move will be- I think it is quite possible that alarmism will win, at least for the short term.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 12:23 PM

Two American medical workers active in the Ebola region are brought back for treatment at Emory Medical Center.
Reason enough for comprehensive reporting on the so-far incurable disease. We are all hopeful that it will not spread to other areas, and especially not to our countries.

The Zmap serum being administered to the two being treated in Atlanta is the result of cooperation among a number of agencies, private and public. Companies involved are Mapp, Leaf Bio and Toronto-based Defyrus Inc.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is the Defyrus partner in Canada,
The U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (located in Maryland) is the driver behind much of the work. Other partners in development of treatment and vaccines are in Asia as well as the U. S. and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 12:52 PM

The above, and much more, is reported in Forbes, 8/05/2014; David Kroll, "Ebola Secret Serum: Small Biopharma, The Army, and Big Tobacco.
There are more comprehensive articles, but Kroll's column is clearly stated.
Tobacco enters into the story because Nicotiana bethamiana is a common plant molecular biology tool. The antibodies are produced in an Australian strain of the tobacco plant at a facility (Kentucky Bioprocessing) owned by Reynolds America Inc. (parent company of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco).

Funding for the research comes from several sources, including three U. S. government agencies; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects, and Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The serum prevented the death of six infected monkeys in research at the Maryland facility of the U. S, Army Medical Research Institute. Research here is led by microbiologist Gene Olinger.

Comprehensive reports have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Sciences Translational Medicine.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 01:21 PM

Great idea if cigarrettes can cure ebola!

I am not seeing anything but the tabloid press talking ebola-is-scary. WashPo, Slate, NYT, are not.

Example search for "ebola" on WashPo yeilds these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html?st=ebola&submit=Submit

including an article on how the tabloid press was being irresponsible in trying to foment fear, and how they failed anyway.

Yet I think it was a bad idea to bring it here on purpose. I hope that it turns out I was wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 04:02 PM

It has been here for at least ten years, in laboratories where research is being carried out.

I don't see the tabloid press, but factual reports on BBC and Al Jazeera are scary enough.
BBC today- "Ebola: Global Experts begin Emergency Talks at WHO."

There is a possibility that the WHO will declare a global health emergency in two days.

Also, BBC- "Why Ebola Is So Dangerous."

British Airways has suspended flights with Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 05:17 PM

It seems to me that the media is stepping a fine line between sensationalism and pragmatism

All the media deals with these days IS sensationalism. Pragmatism and real news died with Edward R. Murrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:05 PM

That looks like government funding for a potential cure to me. Capitalism? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 07:37 PM

Reynolds has put millions into their affiliate doing plant molecular biology. Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, LeafBio and Defyrus Inc. are only three concerns investing in research in this field, there are others worldwide.
Government funding is "seed" money to support research and manufacture. (Republicans are limiting this funding, but it is hard for them to attack items in defense budgets.

The U. S. maintains a number of research institutions, some within or borderline with defense and anti-terrorism departments, which is the case here. The possibility of disease use by terrorists/enemies is a continuing concern.

When an effective vaccine is obtained, private concerns will make and market it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:11 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-docs-condition-downgraded-idiotic-220113802.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:52 PM

"Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world."

Those are Ann Coulter's words. hahahahhahhahahha

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:56 PM

On the way to work this morning listened to an NPR Morning Addition interview with David Quammen, author of "Spillover", a book that traces the cross over and evolution of diseases such as Ebola and HIV that cross over from animals to humans. As human populations over run the earth and spillover more and more into wild areas, more zoonotic diseases (diseases that cross from one species to another) will occur more frequently in human populations. When asked if Ebola is "the next big one" in terms of danger to human populations, he expressed that no, he doesn't think so, but it is a rehearsal for "the next big one."

The Bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas to rats to humans (actually responsible for 3 human plagues) was transmitted to human populations around the world in the 14th century. Probably first spread along the land route of the Silk Road from central Asia, and a little later by merchant ships. Estimates vary but it seems the plagues, caused by variants of the bacterium yersinia pestis, killed off anywhere from 30 to 60% of the world human population during the 14th century. The historian Barbara Tuchman estimated 1/3 of the population of Europe died from the 'Black Death during that century.

Here is a link to the Quammen interview this morning with a written synopsis.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/05/338059797/the-ebola-outbreak-a-dress-rehearsal-for-the-next-big-one

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 09:13 PM

May have got that a bit backwards. Not fleas to rats to humans, at least commonly, but from rats to fleas to humans, i.e. fleas bite many more humans and rats than humans and rats bite one another. Don't know if the bacterium sickens rats or not or fleas or not. But definitely sickens and kills humans.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 11:27 PM

Ebola is not transmitted through intermediaries, you can't get it from something that bit someone with it. You have to be contacted directly by their fluids, which is why having it turns you into a virus bomb as everything between skin and bone turns into a body fluid whose cells are 99% virus and only 1% whatever the fluid was supposed to be, like organ or muscle or blood or whathaveyou. Unless you can fight it off, which you have a much better chance of being able to do if you are genetically from where the virus comes from. Like smallpox. Only that has a vaccine.

And with it being slightly more likely that you will die instead of survive by fighting off the virus well enough not to liquify too far inside your skin, I think it a great idea to take all extreme precautions against getting in contact with those fluids. There is no treatment nor vaccine. It *should* be feared. It *is* an epidemic and nobody in their right mind should be flying in or out of any of those three countries nor accepting passengers who have been there even though being picked up elsewhere.

The ONLY recourse is isolation, as it was with the plague which is now eminently treatable, plus European ancestry confers immunity anyway since otherwise your grandparents wouldna been here. Because when it broke out people didn't do the right thing so it killed most of them and the few people with natural immunity survived.

I don't want that kind of natural selection happening when we know better now. There would be no excuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody else watching Ebola break out?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Aug 14 - 12:47 AM

Vaccine testing is at least a year away.

A vaccine that works for Americans and/or Europeans is at least a year away.
The vaccine likely would be useless in Africa because Africans have different antibodies in their systems (Director, Wistar Institute Vaccine Center). Antibodies influence how a body receives the vaccine.

NIAID director Anthony Fauci says there are 3-4 vaccine candidates in preclinical trials. The FDA may approve the first one for testing in September, but is will be the end of 2015 before testing is ended.

The vaccine itself is a virus, engineered to lack the gene necessary for replication. It is equipped with two Ebola genes that, once the vaccine enters the body's cells, will cause the body's immune system to produce antibodies.
The work is being done on non-human primates.

There also is continuing work with a drug treatment, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego (ZMapp) financed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

"Why the Ebola Vaccine Won't Be Administered in Africa," Joe Kloc, Newsweek, 8/6/14

Note- Dr. Kent Brantly, now being treated at Emory Hospitals in Atlanta, not only received the ZMapp serum, but previously received blood from a survivor, according to Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham. Samaritan's Purse is working with the Emory unit.
The idea was that the blood contained antibodies that would help the infected person.