Ebola outbreak - general thread #2

[Muffet]

Regarding Nigeria, 2 more tested positive August 22nd, and 213 were being monitored.
The two were family members of the health care workers who got it from Patrick Sawyer, who arrived there in July, and died a few days later. They were already being monitored.

That 2-21 day incubation period means it can take awhile to declare an all-clear, but Nigeria did an outstanding, rigorous job monitoring everyone and taking no chances.

This new story gives an important rundown. We should learn from their experience, although some would be impossible to do here.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/world/how-nigeria-contained-its-ebola-outbreak-1.2785632

It's notable that they made an extra effort to keep it from getting into the impoverished areas of Nigeria.

Unfortunately, the area it landed in Dallas is impoverished and full of poor immigrants. One of the biggest hurdles has been communication, with people of 33 languages and less than optimal educations living there, according to the director.
Most in the Liberian community with whom I've come into contact have been nice, with some good leaders among them. Those leaders are working hard to help.

Knowing the area, I pray that, if it starts to travel, it heads West, instead of East, where the people are more difficult. Dallas has pockets that could be nightmares to deal with.

 

[Lyra500]

Just saw this.

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - As the CDC continues to track down the people who had contact with Thomas Duncan, America’s first diagnosed case of Ebola, the health agency has identified 10 people as “high risk.”
The CDC has made contact with about 100 people that had possible contact with Duncan, and has now whittled down the list of people it needs to monitor daily to 50. Of those, 10 individuals who had the closest contact with Duncan have been classified as “high risk.”
The CDC says none of the people under observation is sick at this time. But the agency will continue to monitor all 50 of them for the full 21-day incubation period of the virus. Daily monitoring includes a temperature reading twice a day. A public health worker will also offer education about the virus and ask about symptoms.
“We have cast a wide net, and we have decided on a group of people that we have a very low bar for deciding to follow,” said Dr. Beth Bell from the CDC, during the agency’s daily conference call about the Ebola situation in Dallas. She says the agency has a very “low level of concern about the vast majority of these people.”


http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/10/03/cdc-identifies-10-people-as-high-risk-from-dallas-ebola-case/

Maybe it's coming together now.

Thank you for sharing.

I think this is excellent news - sensible and pragmatic and sounds as if it is just the same as the tactics used in Nigeria to such good effect.

I hope this does show that the plan is starting to operate properly.

Just need to sort out that waste disposal poser now!

 

[Detective Klimpt]

Noone here is looking to cause mass-hysteria. Louise is either uneducated or ignorant regarding Ebola. She slept in the same bed as Duncan, even though he had a fever of 102 and bloodshot eyes, and still wanted to use the brand-new blanket her daughter had bought for Duncan!!! At least her daughter had the common sense to get him back to the hospital.
Louise needs to understand that the purpose of the quarantine is not to inconvience her, but for public safety, as they used to do with TB patients.

bbm. If she did other than sleep (kwim), then she is at very high risk.

 

[popsicle]

Why are Cobb county inmates in news for this ? In Georgia...Atlanta area...hmmmm. Is this a news/no news event?

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2

Around 3 am inmate with flu like symptoms and recent travel to Africa.

 

[Le Singe]

This pt is still in iso and the result is considered prelim according to the tweets I am reading.

just based on my memory to be considered negative you have to have two negative test separated by some amount of time. Maybe 48 hours or maybe 24.

 

[LinasK]

I wonder if it wasn't that the nurse was someone who doesn't follow the news much so it was not on the top of her mind. Also someone posted her at the time he did not have nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. So that makes it a little more understandable.

Yeah, but a couple of years ago when I took my minor daughter to the ER for hitting her head against pool tile (not stopping/looking while she did the backstroke), I can remember the ER doc asking us about foreign travel, even though it was totally unrelated to the reason we were there. Seems like that should be an especially relevant standard protocol ER question to ask nowadays.

 

[cady]

No Jallah is quarantined with her mother Louise, her husband Aaron, and some others. But they were in the emergency room too when Duncan was brought in the 2nd time.

I think separate apartments, though. Louise is with her 13 yr old son and two nephews at her apt. I think that the nephews are adults.......not sure tho. Jallah is quarantined with her family. I believe that CNN reported that they will be moving Louise and those in her apt to a different place. JMO JMO

 

[Lyra500]

I am going to repost this link as I think this is an excellent little documentary - less that 30 minutes long and well worth a watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNoYCiIrJvA

It follows the people working in a treatment centre in Sierra Leone (both local and international); the people who go out into the villages to case find and monitor contacts, the volunteer grave diggers (watch for the part where they say how they have been affected by losing family members) and some of the affected patients.

I won't lie - parts of it made me want to cry, but there were glimmers of hope and it gave names and faces to the numberless 'herd' that I have seen some refer to - rather unkindly in my view. ( I read a post a while ago where someone suggested that it was a good thing to thin out the herd now and then).

I think anyone watching this and not coming away feeling more compassionate would have to be a pretty hard hearted individual.

 

[LinasK]

bbm. If she did other than sleep (kwim), then she is at very high risk.

They had a relationship, but weren't married, so presumably yes. She was his girlfriend/common-law wife. They may have a child together from what I've read.

 

[sorrell skye]

I agree, wine is a good idea.

But seriously I don't think there will ever be a MAJOR outbreak in the U.S.

And no that isn't cause of our great hospitals....

We have a different culture, a different population, and a different climate.

If this chit starts invading the U.S. most folks will take measures. That means disinfectants, not casually touching strangers (i.e. brushing against sweaty people in a crowd), not having unprotected sex with strangers (HIV isn't a huge big deal anymore, and we all remember that it signaled the "end of times" 30 years ago).

I don't think Ebola will ravage any other regions outside of Sub-Saharan Africa. Unless....it mutates and becomes airborne. If it goes airborne then we are living in one of those apocalyptic disaster/zombie movies.

LOL.

BBM

According to my reading, the species zaire ebolavirus is responsible for the current outbreak, which was first identified in 1976. The virus doesn't appear to have mutated since it was first identified over 30 years ago. I'm confident that if it had mutated from a blood-borne/bodily fluid pathogen to an airborne pathogen, the immunologists and epidemiologists with the CDC and the WHO would have noted a change in the genomic sequence of the virus.

Without a doubt, this is a very frightening disease that needs to be controlled and eradicated.

A poster on the previous thread asserted that if the virus had mutated to an airborne pathogen, we'd currently be seeing a multitude of more cases of infection (in the millions), rather than the thousands we're seeing. I tend to agree with that observation.

As horrendous as the current numbers are, infection rates can be attributed to direct or indirect contact with blood/body fluids of symptomatic patients, burial practices, and improper removal/disposal of personal protection gear.

 

[Le Singe]

As a side note....seems there is no recent news about China and Ebola. Last I heard they have quite a lot of mining operations in Africa (run by Chinese Nationals). So what are their policies? Google doesn't seem to know and I am quite sure the Chinese government has some strict policies/procedures in place by now.

i don't know but from my readings both the chinese and australians are doing lots of mine in these areas. The only thing I've heard is they pull most of their people out of the area.

 

[Sonya610]

I wonder if it wasn't that the nurse was someone who doesn't follow the news much so it was not on the top of her mind. Also someone posted her at the time he did not have nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. So that makes it a little more understandable.

I seriously hope the staff at hospitals in the U.S. are not depending on the news media to inform them of highly contagious deadly diseases and the protocol that is required.

Sheeshers.

 

[LinasK]

I think separate apartments, though. Louise is with her 13 yr old son and two nephews at her apt. I think that the nephews are adults.......not sure tho. Jallah is quarantined with her family. I believe that CNN reported that they will be moving Louise and those in her apt to a different place. JMO JMO

Too bad Jallah can't educate her mother on the symptoms of Ebola. She seems to be the only one in that family with some common sense, probably because she worked as a CNA.

 

[popsicle]

[h=3]Military building Ebola treatment centers[/h]
Kirby says the hospital for infected medical personnel being built by the military should be finished by the end of the month.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/26...ers?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[cady]

Too bad Jallah can't educate her mother on the symptoms of Ebola. She seems to be the only one in that family with some common sense, probably because she worked as a CNA.

ya.......there may be some denial at work here too. JMO

 

[LinasK]

ya.......there may be some denial at work here too. JMO

Well, Thomas Duncan apparently also told Louise he didn't have Ebola, and she foolishly believed him. That's what Marthalene's family said too-It's not Ebola, she's having a miscarriage and coincidentally bit her tongue, yeah right!

 

[bwt42]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/us/ebola-dallas-thomas-duncan.html?_r=0

Texas apologized to the occupants of the apartment. I predict the first person into the apartment once the quarantine is lifted will be an attorney.

 

[Lyra500]

Well, Thomas Duncan apparently also told Louise he didn't have Ebola, and she foolishly believed him. That's what Marthalene's family said too-It's not Ebola, she's having a miscarriage and coincidentally bit her tongue, yeah right!

I read that at one point Marthalene was convulsing - biting your tongue severely is very common when having a seizure, so it did not seem like a totally unbelievable suggestion to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-victim-texas-thomas-eric-duncan.html

In a pattern often seen here in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, the family of the woman, Marthalene Williams, 19, took her by taxi to a hospital with Mr. Duncan’s help on Sept. 15 after failing to get an ambulance, said her parents, Emmanuel and Amie Williams. She was convulsing and seven months pregnant, they said.

 

[SCHMAE]

This is a serious question. It appears humorous and even sarcastic and I'm sorry but I don't know how else to ask it. Next week when a patient goes into a hospital with ' ebola ' like symptoms, when they ask if they've been to infected areas, will Dallas be on that list?

 

[Sonya610]

Too bad Jallah can't educate her mother on the symptoms of Ebola. She seems to be the only one in that family with some common sense, probably because she worked as a CNA.

I have little doubt that the mother/fiancee is infected. Besides sleeping in the same bed with sweatiness, and cleaning up vomit, there was no doubt some boot knocking going on before the symptoms got bad.