The Ebola Virus

[JohnK]

When we start to worry about Ebola in Australia and air travel in general?

 

[RAM]

You do know that Ebola is not exactly good at spreading don't you and that the only reason why it is successfully spreading in Africa is due to substandard medical facilities, poor hygiene, misunderstanding by family members on what to do and religious practices such as embalming the dead.

It's pretty deadly if you catch it, but you actually need to come in contact with bodily fluids of an infected person who is actively showing symptoms to catch it.

In a perfect world what you say is indeed true.

Unfortunately in the real world dealing with people it is not anywhere near that black & white.

In Australia the last figures I saw had over 200 people dying each week due to picking up another infection/contamination from Drs or nurses while in hospital. Less than 50% of Drs & nurses wash their hands each time they use the toilets (2013 study). Still that's better than the general population were it is now around just 30% of people (roughly similar figures for M or F) wash their hands each time they go to the toilet.

Worse still of those who wash their hands over 70% (so the survey says) just use running water not soap - so hands still likely to be contaminated.

This morning's news from Dallas that one of the 'specialist quarantine' nursing staff who attended the man, who died last week, now has Ebola.

It's absolutely true that Ebola NEEDS human help to spread - just like food poisoning or the common cold. Simple precautions like actually washing your hands properly (and teaching your kids to) makes a huge difference.

With our 3 kids now towards (or past) the end of school days - not one case of food poisoning, less than 1 cold/flu a year (eldest's last cold was in 2009 a record she's proud of - if only her organisational skills got the same attention). Compared to her peers who seem to have 5 or more colds/flu a year it sure makes a difference.

Simple but continuous observance of basic hygiene will stop Ebola - it is the continuous part that's the problem.

 

[whatmeworry]

Second nurse in the USA comes down with the Ebola virus took a flight a day before she was diagnosed with the virus. Said she had a slight fever on the flight. Plane she took, flew another 5 times before they disinfected it.

Dallas: A second Texas nurse who has contracted Ebola told a US health official she had a slight fever and was allowed to board a plane from Ohio to Texas, a federal source said on Wednesday, intensifying concerns about the US response to the deadly virus.
Amber Vinson, 29, flew from Cleveland, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas, on Monday, the day before she was diagnosed with Ebola, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Vinson told the CDC her temperature was 37.5 Celsius (99.5 Fahrenheit). Since that was below the CDC's temperature threshold of 100.4F, "she was not told not to fly," the source said. The news was first reported by CNN.

Read more: Ebola outbreak: Dallas nurse told CDC she had a slight fever before boarding flight, says source
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Dallas: Authorities in the United States are working to notify the 131 other passengers on the flight that carried a second Texas nurse who has come down with Ebola in Dallas.
The second Dallas health-care worker diagnosed with Ebola travelled on Monday on a Frontier Airlines flight. The federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is asking all passengers from Frontier flight 1143, which landed on Monday evening after a flight from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth, to call the CDC.

Read more: Ebola outbreak: race to notify 131 other passengers on flight that carried second infected nurse
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Ebola: Frontier jet made five flights before being taken out of service
Read more: Ebola: Frontier jet made five flights before being taken out of service
[/COLOR][/LEFT]

 

[RAM]

Second nurse in the USA comes down with the Ebola virus took a flight a day before she was diagnosed with the virus. Said she had a slight fever on the flight. Plane she took, flew another 5 times before they disinfected it.

Beginning to sound more akin to the plot of the movie "Contagion" as time goes by. Hopefully the nurse did not conform to the movie plot.

Interesting hearing extended interview with ;direcotr' of one of the aid groups who had just returned to London via gatwick. He mentioned that Heathrow had active scanning measures in place for passengers from West Africa but he was surprised that he walked straight through Gatwick with no screening at all - "Perhaps they're not ready yet" was his comment.

I hope no AFFers were transiting through Dallas (for their own peace of mind).

 

[drron]

Second nurse in the USA comes down with the Ebola virus took a flight a day before she was diagnosed with the virus. Said she had a slight fever on the flight. Plane she took, flew another 5 times before they disinfected it.

Not only disinfected but Frontier are now replacing the seat covers and floor covering.
Brings up a whole lot of questions.

 

[PLANT]

Yeah I thought Frontier needed a new Fit out when I went to see Buffet
Took Ebola to get it.. Mmmm

 

[RAM]

Not only disinfected but Frontier are now replacing the seat covers and floor covering.
Brings up a whole lot of questions.

Trouble is they're not giving out any answers. Article in the WSJ on a Ebola hearing, the 'illogic' is pure spin. We can trust people to tell the truth and self-report but we if we ban flights then we can't trust them as they'll come to the US by other routes.

WSJ
By Peggy Noonan

Updated Oct. 17, 2014 6:37 p.m. ET 1563 COMMENTS
The administration’s handling of the Ebola crisis continues to be marked by double talk, runaround and gobbledygook. And its logic is worse than its language. In many of its actions, especially its public pronouncements, the government is functioning not as a soother of public anxiety but the cause of it.
An example this week came in the dialogue between Megyn Kelly of Fox News and Thomas Frieden , director of the Centers for Disease Control.
Their conversation focused largely on the government’s refusal to stop travel into the United States by citizens of plague nations. “Why not put a travel ban in place,” Ms. Kelly asked, while we shore up the U.S. public-health system?
Dr. Frieden replied that we now have screening at airports, and “we’ve already recommended that all nonessential travel to these countries be stopped for Americans.” He added: “We’re always looking at ways that we can better protect Americans.”
“But this is one,” Ms. Kelly responded.
Dr. Frieden implied a travel ban would be harmful: “If we do things that are going to make it harder to stop the epidemic there, it’s going to spread to other parts of—”
Ms. Kelly interjected, asking how keeping citizens from the affected regions out of America would make it harder to stop Ebola in Africa.
“Because you can’t get people in and out.”
“Why can’t we have charter flights?”
“You know, charter flights don’t do the same thing commercial airliners do.”
“What do you mean? They fly in and fly out.”
Dr. Frieden replied that limiting travel between African nations would slow relief efforts. “If we isolate these countries, what’s not going to happen is disease staying there. It’s going to spread more all over Africa and we’ll be at higher risk.”
Later in the interview, Ms. Kelly noted that we still have airplanes coming into the U.S. from Liberia, with passengers expected to self-report Ebola exposure.
Dr. Frieden responded: “Ultimately the only way—and you may not like this—but the only way we will get our risk to zero here is to stop the outbreak in Africa.”
Ms. Kelly said yes, that’s why we’re sending troops. But why can’t we do that and have a travel ban?
“If it spreads more in Africa, it’s going to be more of a risk to us here. Our only goal is protecting Americans—that’s our mission. We do that by protecting people here and by stopping threats abroad. That protects Americans.”
Dr. Frieden’s logic was a bit of a heart-stopper. In fact his responses were more non sequiturs than answers. We cannot ban people at high risk of Ebola from entering the U.S. because people in West Africa have Ebola, and we don’t want it to spread. Huh?
In testimony before Congress Thursday, Dr. Frieden was not much more straightforward. His answers often sound like filibusters: long, rolling paragraphs of benign assertion, advertising slogans—“We know how to stop Ebola,” “Our focus is protecting people”—occasionally extraneous data, and testimony to the excellence of our health-care professionals.
It is my impression that everyone who speaks for the government on this issue has been instructed to imagine his audience as anxious children. It feels like how the pediatrician talks to the child, not the parents. It’s as if they’ve been told: “Talk, talk, talk, but don’t say anything. Clarity is the enemy.”
The language of government now is word-spew.
Dr. Frieden did not explain his or the government’s thinking on the reasons for opposition to a travel ban. On the other hand, he noted that the government will consider all options in stopping the virus from spreading here, so perhaps that marks the beginning of a possible concession.
It is one thing that Dr. Frieden, and those who are presumably making the big decisions, have been so far incapable of making a believable and compelling case for not instituting a ban. A separate issue is how poor a decision it is. To call it childish would be unfair to children. In fact, if you had a group of 11-year-olds, they would surely have a superior answer to the question: “Sick people are coming through the door of the house, and we are not sure how to make them well. Meanwhile they are starting to make us sick, too. What is the first thing to do?”
The children would reply: “Close the door.” One would add: “Just for a while, while you figure out how to treat everyone getting sick.” Another might say: “And keep going outside the door in protective clothing with medical help.” Eleven-year-olds would get this one right without a lot of struggle.
If we don’t momentarily close the door to citizens of the affected nations, it is certain that more cases will come into the U.S. It is hard to see how that helps anyone. Closing the door would be no guarantee of safety—nothing is guaranteed, and the world is porous. But it would reduce risk and likelihood, which itself is worthwhile.
Africa, by the way, seems to understand this. The Associated Press on Thursday reported the continent’s health-care officials had limited the threat to only five countries with the help of border controls, travel restrictions, and aggressive and sophisticated tracking.
All of which returns me to my thoughts the past few weeks. Back then I’d hear the official wordage that doesn’t amount to a logical thought, and the unspoken air of “We don’t want to panic you savages,” and I’d look at various public officials and muse: “Who do you think you are?”
Now I think, “Who do they think we are?”
Does the government think if America is made to feel safer, she will forget the needs of the Ebola nations? But Americans, more than anyone else, are the volunteers, altruists and in a few cases saints who go to the Ebola nations to help. And they were doing it long before the Western media was talking about the disease, and long before America was experiencing it.
At the Ebola hearings Thursday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) said, I guess to the American people: “Don’t panic.” No one’s panicking—except perhaps the administration, which might explain its decisions.
Is it always the most frightened people who run around telling others to calm down?
This week the president canceled a fundraiser and returned to the White House to deal with the crisis. He made a statement and came across as about three days behind the story—“rapid response teams” and so forth. It reminded some people of the statement in July, during another crisis, of the president’s communications director, who said that when a president rushes back to Washington, it “can have the unintended consequence of unduly alarming the American people.” Yes, we’re such sissies. Actually, when Mr. Obama eschews a fundraiser to go to his office to deal with a public problem we are not scared, only surprised.
But again, who do they think we are? You gather they see us as poor, panic-stricken people who want a travel ban because we’re beside ourselves with fear and loathing. Instead of practical, realistic people who are way ahead of our government.

 

[juddles]

¨Dr. Frieden responded: “Ultimately the only way—and you may not like this—but the only way we will get our risk to zero here is to stop the outbreak in Africa.”
Ms. Kelly said yes, that’s why we’re sending troops. But why can’t we do that and have a travel ban?
“If it spreads more in Africa, it’s going to be more of a risk to us here. Our only goal is protecting Americans—that’s our mission. We do that by protecting people here and by stopping threats abroad. That protects Americans.”
Dr. Frieden’s logic was a bit of a heart-stopper. In fact his responses were more non sequiturs than answers. We cannot ban people at high risk of Ebola from entering the U.S. because people in West Africa have Ebola, and we don’t want it to spread. Huh?¨

Dr Frieden makes sense to me. IMHO he is perfectly correct - the only way to remove the threat is to stop the outbreak in Africa.

 

[drron]

¨Dr. Frieden responded: “Ultimately the only way—and you may not like this—but the only way we will get our risk to zero here is to stop the outbreak in Africa.”
Ms. Kelly said yes, that’s why we’re sending troops. But why can’t we do that and have a travel ban?
“If it spreads more in Africa, it’s going to be more of a risk to us here. Our only goal is protecting Americans—that’s our mission. We do that by protecting people here and by stopping threats abroad. That protects Americans.”
Dr. Frieden’s logic was a bit of a heart-stopper. In fact his responses were more non sequiturs than answers. We cannot ban people at high risk of Ebola from entering the U.S. because people in West Africa have Ebola, and we don’t want it to spread. Huh?¨

Dr Frieden makes sense to me. IMHO he is perfectly correct - the only way to remove the threat is to stop the outbreak in Africa.

Dr.Freiden is correct only in the statement that Ebola must be contained in Africa.Everything else he says is pardon the pun,cough.
No matter which TV news you watch,which paper or which side of politics the politician comes from most of the US feels Dr.Freiden is out of his comfort zone.
His public health experience comes from his time under Mayor Bloomberg in NYC.Known for his attempted ban on mega drink containers and for keeping a bag of condoms on his desk.

 

[juddles]

...Dr.Freiden is correct only in the statement that Ebola must be contained in Africa......

No no no. He is not stating that the outbreak should be ¨contained¨ in Africa. He said the African outbreak needs to be ¨stopped¨.

That is two very different concepts. Merely thinking that a fence can be magically built to ¨contain¨ it there, without solving the problem, is nonsensical. The international community needs to go directly to Africa and SOLVE the problem - international movement of people is so large scale these days that ¨containment¨ is imposible, and even if it were not, to seal off a section of the planet to suffer unaided would be ethically woeful.

 

[PLANT]

Yeah but you would be alive to say it was ethically woeful..... Alternative is dead but ethical..... I know what I would choose....

 

[drron]

Doesn't matter juddles.Everything else he mutters is still cough.
He initially said it would not matter if someone with ebola arrived in the USA all it needed was simple isolation.Didn't happen that way.
In Africa for every death from ebola 2 medical workers contract the disease.In the USA 1 person dead of ebola and 2 medical workers contract the disease.

 

[casanovawa]

Sorry Juddles but that is rubbish, especially the ethically woeful stuff!

The disease spreads, this isn't like treating poverty or giving aid etc, so there is NO good reason to allow it easy avenues to allow outbreaks in different areas unless you are a touchy, feely muppet who doesn't understand the potential dimensions of the problem...

The first thing you do is contain the problem so that you are diagnosing and treating hundreds or thousands of people instead of tens of thousands or millions.... Next, or at the same time, you try to treat the known victims and stop the outbreak and shrink it... There is also NO good reason to suspect that if you ban people coming in from West Africa that they will all of a sudden want to travel all over Africa spreading the disease... Plus it seems like the health officials of Africa seem to have their cough together containing this, even if they don't have the grandiose titles and qualifications of this head of the CDC..

I am about to head to Africa in a couple of weeks for a safari, thankfully in East Africa rather than West Africa, but its good to hear that the Africans are doing what needs to be done to contain it, but members of my family are still pretty worried and I will be more watchful of what I do and where I go, who I'm around and how I'm feeling before I hop on planes or when I get back home...

 

[RAM]

¨Dr. Frieden responded: “Ultimately the only way—and you may not like this—but the only way we will get our risk to zero here is to stop the outbreak in Africa.”
Ms. Kelly said yes, that’s why we’re sending troops. But why can’t we do that and have a travel ban?
“If it spreads more in Africa, it’s going to be more of a risk to us here. Our only goal is protecting Americans—that’s our mission. We do that by protecting people here and by stopping threats abroad. That protects Americans.”
Dr. Frieden’s logic was a bit of a heart-stopper. In fact his responses were more non sequiturs than answers. We cannot ban people at high risk of Ebola from entering the U.S. because people in West Africa have Ebola, and we don’t want it to spread. Huh?¨

Dr Frieden makes sense to me. IMHO he is perfectly correct - the only way to remove the threat is to stop the outbreak in Africa.

Yes I agree that he does make one statement that makes sense but then he goes and reverts to illogical spin once more.

A number of the countries surrounding the infected West African countries have instituted (and have for some months if you search for news about border controls Ebola) travel bans. Internal air flights have been stopped and in comparison to both the UK and US - they have not had one case emerge let alone health workers fully kitted out getting infected.

The argument that people who want to come to the West (US) will get around any travel restrictions imposed must then be weighed up against the non-travel ban regime currently where people have deliberately lied about their possible contact with Ebola in order to escape the country (as in the man who subsequently died in Dallas). There is no way that he thought carrying the body of a dying Ebola victim did not equal coming in contact with Ebola. But he ticked the box saying he had no contact.

It is worth looking at the CDC protocols for Small Pox - one of the first acts is to institute martial law and enforce quarantine zones by military force. Small Pox is incurable once you have caught it - the vaccines only work to prevent catching it not save you once infected. World-wide vaccination stopped in the late 80s (cost saving as it was officially eradicated in the wild) and the only two disclosed locations for it are at the CDC Atlanta and in Russia (fears of bio-war). Yet the US has established and annual exercises with the National Guard's bio-warfare units (every state has dozens of them complete with mobile containment chambers etc).
[h=3]CDC Smallpox | Smallpox Overview[/h]www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/overview/disease-facts.asp

Historically, variola major has an overall fatality rate of about 30%; however, flat and hemorrhagic smallpox usually are fatal. Variola minor is a less common presentation of smallpox, and a much less severe disease, with death rates historically of 1% or less.

Compare that with the US response to Ebola - still officially incurable and a significantly higher mortality rate than small pox but allegedly not as communicable. The reaction - "Let's institute an honour system."

Does not seem to balance does it?

 

[casanovawa]

Plus at the end of the day, saying the US or Australia won't institute a travel ban on these African nations because they might travel elsewhere in Africa and spread it, is cough because we pay our health officials and border security officials to protect us here... The other African nations I'm sure pay their health officials to protect their population over there...

For our health officials to say we should allow potential carriers into our lands, so they don't travel to other African nations and potentially spread it borders on ludicrous, who do these clowns think they are working for???

Especially when it seem these African officials ARE taking the responsibility to their own populations seriously and doing what needs to be done, and some of our officials seem to be a bit clueless as to what their ultimate role and responsibilities are... If you consider yourself a global citizen go and work for and be paid by the UN...

 

[juddles]

..... A number of the countries surrounding the infected West African countries have instituted (and have for some months if you search for news about border controls Ebola) travel bans. Internal air flights have been stopped and in comparison to both the UK and US - they have not had one case emerge let alone health workers fully kitted out getting infected......

Sorry, but here I have to express myself with some colourful language.

I work in an industry that includes this área of Africa. We are not guided by the ¨news¨, we are forced to face reality. Ebola is already beyond the borders that are published in the western media.

If the US (or any other country) thinks that some travel bans will stop this, they are delusional.


Unless a 40,000 foot high impregnable wall is placed and defended, ¨borders¨ are meaningless. Ebola is hard to catch. The only thing that makes it viable is ignorance.

 

[RAM]

Sorry, but here I have to express myself with some colourful language.

I work in an industry that includes this área of Africa. We are not guided by the ¨news¨, we are forced to face reality. Ebola is already beyond the borders that are published in the western media.

If the US (or any other country) thinks that some travel bans will stop this, they are delusional.


Unless a 40,000 foot high impregnable wall is placed and defended, ¨borders¨ are meaningless. Ebola is hard to catch. The only thing that makes it viable is ignorance.

There is a big difference between treating Ebola outbreak at source and attempting to limit the spread of the Ebola victims.

Given the failures to date within the EU and the US to contain known infected victims (ie: once they've been identified as having the virus) leading to the medical staff treating them supposedly with full protection protocols - then some systemic response is required.

As you know well throughout sub-Saharan there are many with smart phones, although no where near the same proportion as in Australia, if Ebola cases were occuring outside the five identified countries as you are suggesting then it would not be long before the secret was out.

Travel bans are not aimed at stopping the issue - they are aimed at reducing the speed of spread. That has been the basis since before WW1 and remains so today for public health management. Travel bans are intended to limit the risk of expansion not to solve the original problem - but as damage limitation.

They are just one component of the overall solution but they are a vital one. The almost laughable Monty-Pythonesque state in the UK where every passenger is screened who lands at Heathrow from West Africa but landing at Gatwick - they walk straight through with no testing (as of Friday night) does not give rise to much confidence in the bureaucracy running the UK's risk management regime.

 

[vetrade]

Doesn't matter juddles.Everything else he mutters is still cough.

Exactly right, drron, .....and the problem isn't restricted to him. Virtually every supposed public health expert / epidemiologist's comments since day one have also been predominantly cough too. These people don't even seem to have a grasp of Epidemiology 101. Even now they are still insisting that transmission of Ebola requires close direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person - as if the virus is somehow miraculously unable to establish infection even if it is inhaled into the lungs via aerosol droplets. If the infection can be acquired orally through a kiss on the lips then it is stupid to say it can't be acquired through inhalation into the lungs in the face of so many cases of infection being acquired by medical personnel wearing protective gear. Such comments place too much reliance of the general behaviour of filoviridae - an approach which is an all-too-common affliction of those without practical experience.

I think the "experts" have done everyone a dis-service and have probably actually impeded the containment of this disease by consistently discounting the possible role of aerosols and fomites in transmission. The cough I have heard and read doesn't give me much confidence that Ebola will be brought under control any time soon because those setting the agenda seem to be more academics than fixers.

 

[tgh]

All very sobering….. just a little upgrade in the capabilities of the virus and we are all toast…….Nero fiddled while Rome burned…...

 

[whatmeworry]

A woman in the USA has been snapped at Dulles International Airport outside Washington DC earlier this week in a home made hazmat suit.

Picture of woman in home-made Hazmat suit goes viral

Passenger Wears A Hazmat Suit To Dulles Airport [PHOTO] | The Daily Caller
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