outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

South Africa and Senegal trying to bar some folks from countries at issue from entry

First US case in Dallas. Take that NYC & LA! We're number one!

Yikes!

I wonder how many crisis of this kind will happen before countries take the WHO seriously and decide to invest in a proper international health structure to prevent this kind of outbreak. Freaking hate to see institutions like the FMI giving up to 130 millions $ but then pressure politicians in the region to go for austerity, it's a waste of money for everyone.

ebola USED to be at the top of my list of irrational fears. presbyterian hospital is about 5 miles north of where i'm sitting right now.

welp

#patientzero

The Frontline piece on this a week or so ago was eye-opening. Hospitals that are barely more than cordoned off fields, mass graves, disinfecting the back of trucks (where patients ride, near death) by tossing in buckets of bleach, doctors and other aid workers more or less forced to visit villages free of any special suits for fear of scaring the shit out of everyone, children orphaned and alone overnight. Just heartbreaking. It's both a matter of doctors struggling to keep up with a rapidly and easily spreading illness and a population almost impossible to isolate. Bodies being dumped and left by the side of the road, families taking members out of quarantine, superstitious treatments co-mingling with modern medicine ...

Here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/

The saddest bit may be at the end, where grave diggers, one by one, list all their families members who have succumbed.

I'm just a few miles further away, art. Drive by it almost every day as I head up to Richardson.

Your risk of dying from ebola (total confirmed 2014 ebola deaths: a few thousand worldwide) is still lower than your risk of dying due to complications related to seasonal influenza (on average, 5800-7500 a year in the US). Get a flu shot. Don't get too preoccupied by ebola.

wanna c&p that on every damn facebook post I see for the next week

be my guest

i have total confidence in the medical system to properly handle any other arising cases. that said, i am still illogically terrified

Sick Burn I saw on FB:

Don't worry about Ebola spreading in Dallas. The Cowboys have shown us that people in Dallas can't catch anything.

Ebola spreads by physical contact with bodily secretions and fluids. That makes it easier to contain in a place like the USA or Europe, where there are lots of medical facilities and a patient's recent contacts can be quickly discovered and tracked down.

Even so, if ebola strongly establishes itself in Africa, with a reservoir of infected people who keep the virus continuously viable and circulating, then not only will massive numbers of africans die, but ebola will keep leaping to other parts of the world, including the USA and Europe. It can be compared to sparks thrown out from a wildfire, which land on tinder and start other fires away from the main fire. You can put out many of these small satellite fires, but it is hard to extinguish all of them, and the more new places that start burning the harder the firestorm is to keep contained.

That's a good analogy. I really wish international focus between the Ebola outbreak and ISIL was better divided.

run for the hills imo

*not the hills of West Africa, tho*

http://i.imgur.com/LHm72Rq.png

ugh goddamned parody accounts :(

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

Oh jeez:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/texas-ebola_n_5919522.html

at what point is it ok for me to start panicking?

supposed to go to the state fair this weekend and have resolved not to touch any surfaces and to bathe myself in hand sanitizer after it is all over.

the panic is hilarious. Especially from folks who drive on the streets of Dallas. You should be much more afraid of north Texas drivers than ebola.

until there is an effective vaccine I consider ebola as a threat, but in the USA it is a long term threat, which gives the researchers plenty of time to develop that vaccine.

truly despicable imo for rand paul, a physician, to be saying things like this to score political points

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-rand-paul-sounds-ebola-alarm/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html

this is a very difficult article to read

apparently the problem is not money but organization and time

― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, October 1, 2014 7:27 PM (Yesterday

disorganization and lack of preparedness (not to mention distrust of medical authorities, belief in traditional healing, etc) are consequences of poverty, though. this was from a few weeks ago but i think it's a good primer

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1409494

First, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia are resource-poor countries already coping with major health challenges, such as malaria and other endemic diseases, some of which may be confused with EVD. Next, their borders are porous, and movement between countries is constant. Health care infrastructure is inadequate, and health workers and essential supplies including personal protective equipment are scarce. Traditional practices, such as bathing of corpses before burial, have facilitated transmission. The epidemic has spread to cities, which complicates tracing of contacts. Finally, decades of conflict have left the populations distrustful of governing officials and authority figures such as health professionals. Add to these problems a rapidly spreading virus with a high mortality rate, and the scope of the challenge becomes clear

rand paul, a physician

He's an ophthalmologist without board certification so this is something of a stretch, but yeah obv his statements are fear mongering nonsense.

does anyone know what's the hard libertarian faithful take on institutions like the cdc?

viruses are information that wants to be free?

It seems to be under control in Nigeria! Good news!

Slate: Spread of Ebola Appears to Have Been Stopped in Nigeria

Meanwhile, local health workers paid 18,500 face-to-face visits to repeatedly take the temperatures of nearly 900 people who had contact with them. The last confirmed case was detected on Aug. 31, and virtually all contacts have passed the 21-day incubation period without falling ill.

wow, don't think i knew about paul's board certification controversy before this, that's pretty messed up. at any rate tho he's still a physician and should know better

context:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/02/352983774/no-seriously-how-contagious-is-ebola?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=202402

how about this madness

http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/09/04/illegal-immigrant-related-pandemic-diseases-are-appearing-in-the-us/

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/the_invasion_of_enterovirus_evd68.html

meanwhile in dallas officials seem to be handling things well

from cnn.com

Cleanup delayed
As concerns grow over how many people he may have exposed to the deadly virus, a plan to sanitize the apartment was delayed late Thursday.
Brad Smith of the Cleaning Guys, the company hired to sanitize the apartment, said they do not have the proper permits to transport hazardous waste on Texas highways.
Smith said authorities sent them away late Thursday before they entered the apartment and told them to come back with proper permits. It's unclear how long that will take.
"The permit is being processed through DOT (Department of Transportation) because it is a special permit," Smith said.
"This is a unique situation. Once awarded our hazmat teams will be allowed back inside to do their jobs."

CNN: Dr. Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia University's school of public health, called the handling of the quarantine "hair raising."

<3 cnn.com

EBOLA IN DC & MARYLAND

UNNECESSARY IRONIC ALL-CAPS HAVE INFECTED ILX

Let me know when DC ebola fatalities exceeds http://mpdc.dc.gov/page/traffic-fatalities

RIP Thomas Eric Duncan

My office sent out an Ebola advisory note to everyone today advising that we don't travel to countries with outbreaks. Thanks for the tip guys! I guess I should reconsider that vacation to Liberia.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O4ADBA8

mmhmm

I mean, ebola is transmitted through fluid contact, so it might, or it might just make you a prepper

How long can ebola just hang out on surfaces and remain contagious?

Also, have any of the usual right wing subjects started calling him Barack Ebola?

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/obola-explained

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By-n99jIMAESe_o.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/us/texas-health-worker-tests-positive-for-ebola.html

yup

My wife's oldest brother died of meningitis when he was seven. It took less than a day from his first symptoms to his death. It's nothing you fuck around with.

I caught this same type of meningitis (meningococcal) as a 10 month old baby, through exposure at a big cinema. This is how I know my first outing to a movie was to see Dr. Doolittle, because my mom liked Anthony Newley.

is that something we're regularly vaccinated against?

not if RFK, Jr. has his way

I think it was one of, if not the only, required vaccination when I went to college because it spreads quickly in packed environments

just talked to a random person last week whose friend died suddenly of meningitis, yeah scary stuff

meningococcal meningitis is spread through respiratory secretions/droplets. the mosquito-borne stuff (west nile, japanese encephalitis, western and easter equine encephalitis) are generally termed encephalitides, though there’s some overlap in symptoms

yeah so

so what?

oh, Hantavirus.

...which I keep misreading as Hentaivirus.

I got a hanta box at my ramen shop last week

https://people.com/cdc-full-time-cruise-ship-inspectors-were-laid-off-one-year-ago-amid-record-outbreaks-report-11969485

Message from my sister:

"I know a guy who’s on the hantavirus ship. He’s in the cabin next to that influencer crybaby guy who’s been on the newsfeeds. Says 'he wants his own Netflix series.'"

is hantavirus what killed Gene Hackman's wife? where did she catch it?

I remember reading something about mice in their home, though that might have just been conjecture

looked it up and found some news articles confirming it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3evzk5gx0vo

Yeah, primarily mouse-borne: "The most common carrier in North America is the deer mouse. Infection is usually caused by inhaling hantaviruses that have become airborne from rodent urine, droppings or saliva."

I wonder if it is cat-to-human transmissible. Cats are all over mice, and people are all over their cats.

Apparently not. "Several types of rodents are known to carry hantavirus. Cats can be infected by hantavirus but will show no symptoms, therefore the virus is not dangerous to them. In addition, cats cannot transmit hantavirus to people."

Apparently not. "Several types of rodents are known to carry hantavirus. Cats can be infected by hantavirus but will show no symptoms, therefore the virus is not dangerous to them. In addition, cats cannot transmit hantavirus to people."

you can't really publicly scream about epidemiology if you're an expert and haven't examined the ship but pretty much every expert has been doing the equivalent of screaming "THE SHIP HAS MOUSE URINE AND POOP ALL OVER. IT'S THE SHIP"

I love cruising, hate cruises.

"THE SHIP HAS MOUSE URINE AND POOP ALL OVER. IT'S THE SHIP"

fuckin a. thread reminding me why i get so stressed when i find mouse poop in the house!! wtf

Another ebola outbreak in the DRC & Uganda, with dozens dead... so sad in that there's actually a vaccine for this: Merck’s Ervebo... but I guess it's not widely available, and probably even less so with Trump's USAID cuts