Ebola Spreading :

[Trina]

This is the picture of the procedure for removal of the clothing and personally I see this as a bad procedure. One of the first thing that we would do when working with someone with contagion is "double glove" and taking off the contaminated glove to unzip means you have a hand unzipping a possibly contaminated front of your outfit which is the first place the patient would splash you when you are caring for a patient laying in the bed.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/ppe-poster.pdf

[jayrtom]

I think the exaggeration on the news, as several posts have demonstrated only adds to the opposite of what everybody wants - calm, serenity, clear and sound informatiins on what to do. For instance in the neighborhood of portugal, spain, an auxiliary worker got the virus because she touched the face with one of the gloves (she participated in the team that treated a pacient that was returned from Africa) ... Presumably she went home after being contaminated, and only several days after that she was hospitalized. First she said that she didn't knew how she got the virus but then admitted how it happened. She has been accused of not following the protocol but she is also a victim of the stressed imposed by all the sensationalist news. Incidentally, no other case of the virus happened even though she was around with the virus for days, not even her husband

In Portugal, after this case in Spain happened, the papers are constantly talking about this and that we should be in a higher level of security, discussions take place everiday on tv, etc, etc... There are reports of "suspects" of the virus all around and fear is constantly being instilled on the population...

As fare as my opinion goes this is the worst way to deal with it... Panic doesn't solve anything, on the contrary!

[NSSewer]

It's clear we have already started to PANIC

[Trina]

We need to be informed not panic. There is nothing we personally can do but try to stay healthy and not spread things to our brothers and sisters. The CDC is getting their workout right now because this is the largest outbreak of the EV-D68 and they are puzzled with this virus as well. We are truly seeing evidence of being close to the end of this system of things.

[shali]

I was listening to all news radio station last night on the way to meeting and they interviewed a expert in viruses from Indianapolis Indiana. he said that this Ebola virus is primed and ready to go airborne at any time.

[Stavro]

There are many "experts" hired by many media outlets, but few if any have any experience in studying Ebola, or any disease at all. In many cases, it has been revealed that the "doctors" received their PHD from unaccredited diploma mills. That is to say, despite having the title of "doctor", they've never even stepped foot on a university campus, or opened a medical book of any kind. Their sole qualification is paying $100 for someone to print out a diploma.

 

With all the grossly inaccurate information flying around, could we please put this "Ebola is now airborne" talk to rest until such news comes from a verifiable doctor, an accredited research institution, or an internationally recognized health organization? These stories have caused far too much harm already, I don't feel it is at all kind or loving to continue repeating these fear-mongering rumors as absolute fact.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Stavro

[trottigy]

We need to be informed not panic. There is nothing we personally can do but try to stay healthy and not spread things to our brothers and sisters. The CDC is getting their workout right now because this is the largest outbreak of the EV-D68 and they are puzzled with this virus as well. We are truly seeing evidence of being close to the end of this system of things.

 

2  Oops 3 patients is the largest outbreak ever? Wow! OR are we now talking about something other than Ebola?

 

 

EDIT: I did a search and see that EV-D86 is NOT Ebola, but a non-lethal respiratory virus - http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/08/health/enterovirus-ev-d68-explainer/

 

When you have a bad summer cold, often what you have is an enterovirus, said Mark Pallansch, a virologist and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Viral Diseases.

 

Maybe we could keep the topic about Ebola - rather than adding in info about summer colds? 

 

Edit2: I liked the "how to prevent":

 

 

What can be done to prevent it?

 

Like other enteroviruses, the respiratory illness appears to spread through close contact with infected people. That makes children more susceptible.

 

There's not a great deal you can do, health officials say, beyond taking commonsense steps to reduce the risk.

 

Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds -- particularly after going to the bathroom and changing diapers.

 

Clean and disinfect surfaces that are regularly touched by different people, such as toys and doorknobs.

 

Avoid shaking hands, kissing, hugging and sharing cups or eating utensils with people who are sick. And stay home if you feel unwell.

Edited October 15, 2014 by trottigy

[Trina]

No I wasn't trying to add in I was saying that we should be more worried about the other colds going around. This is not just a summer cold, it is deadly to many children this year and has been causing paralysis in children, different from other colds, children are being taken tot he hospital with breathing problems causing them to need hospitalization. The largest outbreak statement was made about the EV-D68 or commonly known as enterovirus. However, 2 patients contracting Ebola in the US is still the largest outbreak in the he US unless I am unaware of other cases.

[trottigy]

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html

 

1990 4 people contracted, but developed anti-bodies - so no "outbreak" per say, but then can we really call 2 patients that are in quarantine an outbreak?

[ava]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/how-do-you-catch-ebola-new-case-no-surprises-n226646

 

t may sound like Ebola is spreading out of control in the United States, but what is happening is not unexpected. Scientists who study viruses say there’s no change and no surprise in what is happening with Ebola

 

From the beginning of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, it’s been clear that health care workers such as doctors and nurses are at high risk of infection. That’s because Ebola spreads by close, physical contact with a patient’s bodily fluids. Taking care of a patient with vomiting and diarrhea is very messy, and that’s how the virus can spread.

 

Protective gear works only as well as the techniques used to put it on and take it off. The virus doesn’t spread far, but fluids from a very sick patient are highly infectious, and it only takes a droplet in the eye, up the nose or into the mouth to cause infection. Health workers also use needles, which can slip and cause what’s called a needle stick injury. If an infectious droplet is left on protective gear, someone taking it off could touch it and then carry the virus to her eyes, nose or mouth without even thinking.

 

Doctors who have worked successfully with Ebola patients say it takes a team to do it safely — each health care worker needs someone else spotting them as they gear up and take gear off.

 

 Health care workers are at higher risk because they are handling patients, leaning closely in to them, cleaning up vomit and diarrhea and inserting needles. The Ebola virus lives in warm body fluids. It doesn’t float in the air and it doesn’t survive being dried out. And it has to get into your body to infect you — via the eyes, nose or mouth or in a cut. People who might transmit Ebola are very sick. In 40 years of Ebola outbreaks, there haven’t been any mystery infections.

[ava]

Keep in mind, the 44 people being monitored who were friends, family of the first victim with Ebola who came from Africa do not have Ebola.  You are monitored for I think 3 weeks, and that ends this Sunday.  So none of these people who were living with the first victim or came in contact with him have Ebola.  Even his own family living with him do not have Ebola.

 

As the above article clearly shows, health care workers are at greatest risk.  

[ava]

I was listening to all news radio station last night on the way to meeting and they interviewed a expert in viruses from Indianapolis Indiana. he said that this Ebola virus is primed and ready to go airborne at any time.

 

Before you believe what you heard on the radio, I have a question.  Was it a republican/conservative news station?  The reason I ask is we have a station in TX that is all news/talk all day.  It's a Republican/Conservative/Tea Party station. All the hosts and their guests including their scientists have been scaring people like crazy on this station down here with their Ebola Talk. They are also using Ebola as a political tool, blaming it on Obama since he didn't block flights from Africa.  

 

I do not know what news station you were listening too, but if it's a right leaning political station, I wouldn't believe everything they say.  

[Trina]

This is the definition of airborn and contact diseases. When someone can cough or sneeze with an illness and you get it this way it is considered airborn.

For instance the disease strep A is the flesh eating virus, you can only get it by touching and their symptoms do not pose an issue of being distributed through the air.

http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/airborne/

[ava]

This is the definition of airborn and contact diseases. When someone can cough or sneeze with an illness and you get it this way it is considered airborn.

For instance the disease strep A is the flesh eating virus, you can only get it by touching and their symptoms do not pose an issue of being distributed through the air.

http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/airborne/

 

Back on page 2 of this thread I posted this, and here it is again:

 

 

http://blogs.reuters...-ebola-spreads/

 

No virus that causes disease in humans has ever been known to mutate to change its mode of transmission. This means it is highly unlikely that Ebola has mutated to become airborne. It is, however, droplet-borne — and the distinction between the two is crucial.

 

Doctors mean something different from the public when they talk about a disease being airborne. To them, it means that the disease-causing germs are so small they can live dry, floating in the air for extended periods, thus capable of traveling from person to person at a distance. When inhaled, airborne germs make their way deep into the lungs.

Chickenpox, measles and tuberculosis are airborne diseases. Droplets of mucus and other secretions from the nose, mouth and respiratory tract transmit other diseases, including influenza and smallpox.

 

When someone coughs, sneezes or, in the case of Ebola, vomits, he releases a spray of secretions into the air. This makes the infection droplet-borne.  Some hospital procedures, like placing a breathing tube down a patient’s air passage to help him breathe, may do the same thing.

Droplet-borne germs can travel in these secretions to infect someone a few feet away, often through the eyes, nose or mouth. This may not seem like an important difference, but it has a big impact on how easily a germ spreads. Airborne diseases are far more transmittable than droplet-borne ones

 

For Ebola Zaire to become airborne in humans, it would need to cause lung disease significant enough to release lots of virus into respiratory secretions. The virus would then need to survive outside the body, dried and in sunlight for a prolonged time. And it would need to be able to infect another person more than a couple feet away.

There’s no evidence from previous epidemics or laboratory experiments that Ebola Zaire behaves in this way. Although the virus is mutating as the Ebola epidemic continues to grow in West Africa, it has multiple hurdles to overcome in order to become airborne.

As we rule out Ebola being airborne, the droplet-borne risk of Ebola must be addressed. Most important, those on the frontlines—especially nurses and doctors—should be provided with the necessary training and personal protective equipment to ensure that there are no more transmissions within hospitals.

[Stavro]

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/06-october-2014/en/
 

Ebola virus disease is not an airborne infection. Airborne spread among humans implies inhalation of an infectious dose of virus from a suspended cloud of small dried droplets.

This mode of transmission has not been observed during extensive studies of the Ebola virus over several decades.

Common sense and observation tell us that spread of the virus via coughing or sneezing is rare, if it happens at all. Epidemiological data emerging from the outbreak are not consistent with the pattern of spread seen with airborne viruses, like those that cause measles and chickenpox, or the airborne bacterium that causes tuberculosis.

Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person.

This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.

WHO is not aware of any studies that actually document this mode of transmission. On the contrary, good quality studies from previous Ebola outbreaks show that all cases were infected by direct close contact with symptomatic patients.

[ava]

This is the definition of airborn and contact diseases. When someone can cough or sneeze with an illness and you get it this way it is considered airborn.

For instance the disease strep A is the flesh eating virus, you can only get it by touching and their symptoms do not pose an issue of being distributed through the air.

http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/airborne/

 

Airborne is not the same as droplet.

 

Ebola is droplet transmission, the definition is:

 

 Droplet transmission occurs when contagious droplets produced by the infected host are propelled a short distance through coughing or sneezing and can come into contact with another person's conjunctiva, mouth or nasal mucosa. Influenza can be transmitted by large droplets, which generally travel 3 to 6 feet. Since these droplets generally are large (greater than 10 micrometers) and do not stay suspended in the air, this mode of transmission is not affected by special air handling or control of room pressures.

 

Definition of Airborne:  

 

Airborne transmission occurs when bacteria or viruses travel on dust particles or on small respiratory droplets that may become aerosolized when people sneeze, cough, laugh, or exhale. They hang in the air much like invisible smoke. They can travel on air currents over considerable distances. These droplets are loaded with infectious particles. 

[trottigy]

Keep in mind, the 44 people being monitored who were friends, family of the first victim with Ebola who came from Africa do not have Ebola.  You are monitored for I think 3 weeks, and that ends this Sunday.  So none of these people who were living with the first victim or came in contact with him have Ebola.  Even his own family living with him do not have Ebola.

 

As the above article clearly shows, health care workers are at greatest risk.  

 

 

WHAT! a EXTREMELY infectious disease AND a person who certainly had it and was infectious and NONE - NOT ONE - of his family and friends that he was around FOR 4 DAYS while contagious has it????

 

How is that even possible???

 

OR - maybe it is not as infectious as some say and we really do NOT need to panic?

 

What seems more reasonable? Super infectious PANIC - or it is not "EXTREMELY contagious" and NO NEED to PANIC?

 

From FOX news no less - http://www.fox44.com/news/us-ebola-case-80-being-monitored-dallas

Edited October 15, 2014 by trottigy

[Dages]

There is no risks for developed countries. This is slowly dozing in West Africa because they have less means to fight it there.

[ava]

Sadly, the panic has started, here are some highlights:

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/15/health/ebola-fears/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

False alarms galore

But in the sky and on the ground, the fear persists.

And with the news Wednesday that a second health care worker tested positive for the virus at the Dallas hospital while tending to the now-deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, those fears are magnifying.

Five people with flu-like symptoms on a flight from Dubai to Boston were examined by workers in hazmat gear upon landing. It turns out none had the criteria for Ebola or had visited West Africa.

At Los Angeles International Airport, 40 firefighters responded to a plane from New York when a passenger had flu-like symptoms.

"It has turned out that there was some miscommunication," Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Jaime Moore said. "This patient had been to the continent of Africa, but not near West Africa. As a matter of fact, it was South Africa."

And a hoaxter wearing a mask in Los Angeles exited a city bus saying, "Don't mess with me, I have Ebola."

The bus driver was rushed to a hospital. And police begin a manhunt.

Spreading misinformation

On top of the false alarms, high-profile voices have spread misinformation about the disease.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal told the Marietta Daily Journal that the state's public health commission told him that "water kills the Ebola virus" and that her advice was to "wash your hands."

In fact, water alone does not kill Ebola. Chlorine and bleach do.

And singer Chris Brown suggested to his 13.7 million Twitter followers that the Ebola outbreak is intentional.

"I don't know ... But I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control," he tweeted. "(Expletive) is getting crazy bruh."

[Stavro]

There is no risks for developed countries. This is slowly dozing in West Africa because they have less means to fight it there.

 

The rapid spread is partially due to a less developed healthcare system, but primarily due to people believing in wild rumors ("government cannibalism program") and refusing to cooperate with even the most basic requests.

 

For example, Uganda (East Africa) has a health care system similar to the areas hardest hit by Ebola, and here's how they handle Ebola outbreaks:

 

http://www.dw.de/how-uganda-stopped-previous-ebola-outbreaks/a-17869469

Because Uganda already has some experience with large Ebola outbreaks, the population is well informed and cooperates with the medical facilities. "Unlike some West African communities or cultures, Uganda is very open in that they want to report (Ebola) cases and not hide them," Shoemaker said.

"Ugandans will report even suspected cases that have any similarity with the symptoms of Ebola because they want to make sure that it doesn't get big." Shoemaker said they have not encountered the kind of resistance to seek medical treatment witnessed in the current outbreak in West Africa.

 

Compare that to this report about Sierra Leone, one of the hardest hit countries in West Africa:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28529065

 

Dr Ben Neuman, from the University of Reading, told BBC Radio 5 live's Phil Williams people were "threatening or attacking doctors" and "liberating" sick relatives from quarantine units.

[ava]

It's being reported in Dallas that these two nurses didn't wear Hazmat suits for two days til Thomas Duncan tests confirmed he had Ebola.

 

If this is true, it now makes sense why these two nurses have Ebola.

[trottigy]

I wonder how many more did the same.

 

Ava, thanks for being our "on the spot reporter" we can trust!

 

versus:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-29618224

 

 

How panic about Ebola is spreading faster than the virus
Edited October 15, 2014 by trottigy

[ava]

I wonder how many more did the same. Ava, thanks for being our "on the spot reporter" we can trust!

 

This is being reported by good news sources in Dallas.  It's coming from the medical records.  Nurses are also claiming that these two nurses with ebola were in contact with Mr. Duncan's bodily fluids with just their scrubs on.  They are also saying that face masks used did not cover their entire face so skin was exposed.  So early on, no Hazmat Gear was being used.

 

Right now, they are trying to figure out how many other health care workers were in close contact with him before they wore Hazmat gear.

 

24/7 media coverage in Dallas on this.  Ebola is the biggest news story since Kennedy was shot.  It's nonstop right now down here.

Edited October 15, 2014 by ava

[Trina]

This nurse was negligent she knew she should not have gotten on that plane, this kind of action for whatever reason is how this virus can become huge. They have increased the protective gear from barrier to hazmat now...interesting. Washington Post brings out they finally got the point of what I said earlier, double gloves and better outfits where no zippers...

The airborne definition is very tricky, both define it as a virus spreading through air coughed or sneezed within a certain amount of feet...ebola is alive outside the body on surfaces for hours. In my opinion anything that can be transferred from surfaces to infect you is an easy thing to get if you don't want to think of it that way it's fine it is a matter of opinion on what is easy and not easy. Why would they need to contact all the people on that plane if it is only contracted by personal contact, obviously they are concerned about surfaces here.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/26789524/2nd-us-health-care-worker-tests-positive-for-ebola

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dallas-hospital-learned-its-ebolo-protocols-while-struggling-to-save-mortally-ill-patient/2014/10/14/32ff2414-53cf-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html

[Lance]

A little reminder .. Fox News would not be my go to place for accuracy ;)

You can only get Ebola from:

• Touching the blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from Ebola.

• Touching contaminated objects, like needles.

• Touching infected animals, their blood or other body fluids, or their meat.

Edited October 16, 2014 by TheDoorGuy