Topic: Anyone following the ebola outbreak? - page 19. (Read 39836 times)

This has already happened. Patrick Sawyer, an infected individual from Liberia sparked an outbreak in Nigeria resulting in dozens getting the disease. Another example is the recent outbreak in Senegal. One infected individual from Guinea traveled to Senegal (although by road) and resulted in several people getting the disease. In both cases, the patients were under observation for Ebola. But due to incompetence from the authorities, they were allowed to travel.

Clearly somebody infected with the virus could theoretically get on a plane and spark an outbreak – probably in a hospital – anywhere in the world. However, as with the Mers virus, which arrived in London via a patient who was taken to St Thomas' hospital, infection control measures are so stringent in more affluent countries that it is probable the virus would be very rapidly contained

I also hope it gets contained.

By not so difficult, you mean that there is not really a lot that can be done at this time?
Isolation, monitoring fluids and electrolytes, not so hard yes.

The management of the biological waste, the availability and use of negative air-flow isolation units, and the virulence and risk to medical staff are significantly more difficult than most disorders.
There is also the social factor.  Folks tend to panic.  Medical staff, ambulance drivers (who are not at all equipped for this), sometimes just do not show up.
Even highly trained professionals make mistakes.

The two in Atlanta were handled in a special unit set up by the CDC.  Not every hospital has such units.  There is a lot of effort currently underway to be more prepared, but right now, we very much are not prepared.

If people are thinking that if they can just make it to the USA that they will live, that may cause some problems also.

Experimental drugs and/or vaccines will likely be available if/when it hits Western nations. The urgency of the research in this field has increased hugely, and it seems like it's not that difficult of a disease to deal with from a biological standpoint.

When I mentioned Ebola coming to the US a few weeks ago, everyone said I watched too many movies. It is a real possibility and containment isn't as easy as everyone says.

Yeah that's pretty bad. I'd rather sweat for a while than get Ebola.

The president's main job is to take the blame for stuff.
There may be a few things missed but there really wasn't a whole lot that could be done with the tools at hand.
1) no easy way to detect infection
2) no easy way to close the borders from all civilian traffic

Shutting down air traffic is not so hard, but other than that, its open season on mobility.  
There are now military deployments around some infected areas with instructions to shoot and kill people that try to leave.  This isn't really a better situation.  People get desperate, military get infected, it continues.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/04/calls-intensify-for-international-military-response-to-ebola/
And it reduces the trust which is a necessary element.

It sounds more like you are looking for what amounts to a totalitarian and militaristic regime which is what it would take to be "competent".  This likely wouldn't have been a lot more effective anyway, it just changes the problems a bit.  The tools and infrastructure just aren't there and aren't going to simply appear when needed.

Of course the CIA will be blamed.  So long as folks see the governments as almighty and cede all responsibility for everything to them, that will continue.  The also blame god.

You can call it stupidity, or incompetence, but it really sounds more like blaming the victims.  Imagine that they are doing the best that they can with the information, knowledge and tools that they have and have the best of good will.  The outcome is pretty much the same.

It looks like there is lot of incompetence and stupidity out there. For example even doctors and healthcare workers skip protective gear because there are too hot: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/09/03/latest-us-doc-get-ebola-skipped-protective-gear-100-degree-heat-says-colleague/  

What other reason do you propose?

Personally, I follow the simple rule: "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by simple stupidity".

Sorry I find it extremely hard to believe anyone can be that incompetent this day and age.    Something like this is what the government is in place for and I can assure you they have more then enough competence to not let anybody enter their country that may have contracted and deadly virus like Ebola.  If only to try to contain the spread of an outbreak.  This couldn't be any poorly handled then it is right now so incompetence is just not a going to cut it for me and that just feels like a cliché cookie cutter excuse.

Unless of course it hits a major metropolis.
Imagine Bangladesh?
Or any city with high mobility, even a place where most folks have cars and such.
Monrovia, Capital of Liberia, has non-stop flights to Brussels, and Casablanca. 
Infrared scanners can check for temperature in travelers, but it can be carried without symptoms for weeks.

Yeah, no, that's not enough.
Money isn't going to solve it.  It will take people, training, infrastructure and bilateral trust if personnel are to be shipped in.  None of those are easily available.
There isn't an airdropped solution that can be bought with a big enough check.
Its not like the CDC is resource constrained, if it were a "national emergency" they can call on whatever they need.
In such case the surgeon general, gets to be a real general:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/legal/42USC264.pdf

Because African governments are really incompetent. Even more so than Western governments.

Oh so much worse I don't even want to imagine it.  I'm honestly just waiting for the outbreak to hit the United States..  This situation has been so poorly handled it's scary.  I can't for the life of me understand why Liberia's President didn't shut the border down before the virus had a chance to spread there.  When you have terrorism running wild and psycho's talking about depopulation your imagination just starts to run wild, or maybe it is just me.  So yea I for one think it can get worse.

Don't think it will be that high. So far about 2k have died. They are predicting 30k by the end of it.

If the forward projection is correct and it takes ~1 year to get the outbreak under control, then we can expect on the order of 100k - 1 million casualties. It is clear that even at the current relatively low levels of cases, containment has been entirely ineffective, as the outbreak is following a classical exponential growth trend. If the outbreak starts to go into the tens - hundreds of thousands, containment will be all but impossible without major military intervention by Western nations.

What you guys thinking about that locals shouting that this is CIA's special operation?



Sadly, one of locals found container with an infected snake, was infected, ...

damn, the wealther nations should provide more financial assistance in containing this shit. those people are not being fed, what do you expect them to do? starve to death in bed? and if this shit spreads, it will reach the developed nations.

by the way, if they do develop vaccines, what happens when the virus mutates? it'll probably become immune.

Yes.  They are developing vaccines.  They have no idea if any of the ones that they are developing work yet.  When they figure that out, they are still going to have to start mass production.  Even if they already have one that works, knowing which one it is will take some trial and error.  It would be tragic if they started mass production on the wrong ones.  Vaccines can also decrease survival rate as they challenge the immune system and aren't effective immediately. 

Once produced, and tested.  The first effort is going to be to vaccinate the medical staff everywhere.  The population will come afterward.  Then they will have to ring-fence the affected areas in the hope of containing the outbreaks.  This is not likely to succeed everywhere.  We are in for a long haul.

I heard that a few versions of the vaccines were already being developed prior to this West African outbreak.  But the question is whether the local authorities will use them, without the necessary clinical trials. And we need to remember that West Africa is home to almost 300 million people. Vaccinating all of them against Ebola might be impractical.