Ebola outbreak - general thread #3

[bessie]

MOD NOTE: Lay off those who already have suffered, and instead focus on the DISEASE itself, and the measures taken to contain it and control its spread, plus the obstacles.

 

[Sonya610]

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/3/pdfs/04-0981.pdf

I own two of the most adorable, affectionate and smart dogs in the world. It would KILL me to see them suffer, or be put down.

That being said, if there was proof that this disease is zoonotic, between canines and humans, I could not live with myself (and probably wouldn't have to!) if I knew my dogs could take out the city, state, etc.

God, please don't let this be!!!

Okay I read most of the study. It says NOTHING about canines being the host for this disease or spreading it. It talks a lot about France, which to my knowledge has had NO Ebola cases, so why is France being cited as the baseline for the statistics?????

Do the people living in France hunt and eat bush meat? Are they likely to hunt and kill Ebola infected Gorillas or other primates/monkeys? Do they eat the bats that are known to carry Ebola????

If the answer is NO (and it is, unless they are getting bush meat via black market from Africa) then well the whole study is ridiculous. Meaningless. Just plain silly.

 

[LinasK]

CNN is reporting 3 people connected to the deputy are going in for testing.

 

[CARIIS]

Media again. I think it was, in designer clothes, conditioned studio , making 17452 minute, to read that the Spanish nurse did not follow protocol instead of focusing on the fact that she went over there to help sick and impoverished human beings. Its easy to state that this “bad” health worker missed something.


All the while forgetting that this person is living in squalor off duty , and while on duty , what is supposed to be a hospital when in tact it is a room , with a bunch of cots, with mold on the walls, not conditioned, with no equipment, with dying folks vomiting, urinating on themselves, defecating and sweaty while wearing a heavy extraordinarily hot haz mat suit – not to be susceptible to making an error , while exhausted and overheated, witnessing what she has witnessed for hours not to make a mistake.


IMO, its a horrible stance to take …..here in a big urban city, Dallas – ER staff errored in their air conditioned ER …..............the notion that this Spanish nurse make a mistake (after being a compassionate human being ) is just wrong.... its inhumane.........IMO

 

[XXXXXXXX]

From WHO, "The virus [ebola] is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission."

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

From web md, here are 39 diseases you can get directly from animals. Rabies was the first one that popped in my head.

http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/diseases-from-animals-primer

From WILD animals, not domestic pets, right?

 

[hockeymom]

Why is it going to take 48 hours to confirm or not confirm ebola in the deputy? Correct me if I'm wrong,but the other day when the 2 people on the flight to Newark were vomiting,they were tested and results were known in a matter of hours.

 

[FlamingoLady]

MOD NOTE: Lay off those who already have suffered, and instead focus on the DISEASE itself, and the measures taken to contain it and control its spread, plus the obstacles.

Sorry, just read this after my last post.

 

[Gardenlady]

Contra CNN, El Pais reports 6 isolated in Madrid, none of whom have shown symptoms, but are being isolated and observed pending tests.

http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/10/08/actualidad/1412805314_083551.html



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[Muffet]

I doubt the deputy has ebola, but I am very glad to see a proper response.

Being Frisco, it doesn't surprise me, and I believe we would all be safe if we could depend on all counties and countries to be as diligent as Frisco is .

I'm sorry, but I don't think walking into a crowded clinic was an appropriate response. If he was sick, since he was exposed, he should have called the CDC.

The "response" I was crediting was that of the... Well, the "responders".

I wouldn't have walked into a clinic like that, either. IMO, He should have been on the watch list and had a number to call.

We don't know whose idea it was for him to go to the Care Now clinic, but knowing the options there, I can think of a few reasons that was the chosen destination.

 

[FlamingoLady]

http://news.yahoo.com/feds-publish-guidelines-for-burying-us-ebola-patients-170101294.html

Very good info about guidelines re: handling of a patient after dying from Ebola.

 

[SwampMama]

So why are you so concerned about the dog thing?

Are you worried that DOGS might introduce the virus into your state or into your home? Are you worried about dogs from West Africa arriving on international flights to Louisiana and infecting the local populace?

This isn't about dogs, if you want to kill or get rid of your dog you don't need to use Ebola as an excuse.

There is NO clinical link to canine infection or transmission whatsoever, but if you want to kill your dog you don't need to find a reason, and using Ebola as a reason is stretching things to an extreme.

Dogs are mammals. mammals have been shown to be a host and reservoir for the virus while it was not ravaging the human community. Therefore caution has to be applied.

I'm really not sure how to respond to the statement about "if you want to kill your dog you don't need to find a reason, and using Ebola as a reason is stretching things to an extreme". Who on earth said I(or anyone else) wanted to kill dogs and the I (or they) were using Ebola as a reason.

I'm not into killing dogs for no reason. But this isn't about just dogs, it is about the capacity of mammals to be carriers of a deadly virus that even worldwide experts are having incredible issues trying to control. If you don't see that as a problem then that is fine.

Anyway, we obviously seeing things differently so "c'est la vie" (aka "that's life"). I have no desire to try and change your mind. As I stated before, what I posted was informational and I did not state my opinion on that article. I simply presented it for each to interpret as they please. I'm sure I will see you on another thread/another case and we can find common ground there.

 

[Redux]

From WILD animals, not domestic pets, right?

If you're going to quote, you should quote the whole thing as the context was important. Let me refresh your memory - you said:

Quote Originally Posted by DeeDeah View Post
Is it insensitive of me to say I'm more worried about the harmless and blameless dog than the woman?

Almost NO diseases are transmittable cross species. "putting the dog down" is a knee jerk reaction, imo.

Quote Originally Posted by DeeDeah View Post
I despise ignorance. This was so unnecessary and thoughtless. I'm new here so I'm just finding my way around. Not sure how to quote every post, BUT someone posted earlier that some dogs contracted Ebola from eating flesh from corpses.

Obviously, this poor dog didn't eat any flesh of a corpse since this woman is still alive. I also am skeptical about these claims.

Almost ZERO human diseases can be transmitted to animals, just like almost ZERO animal diseases can be transmitted to humans.

Forgive me for what may seem like an over-reaction to this news. I am an animal lover who fosters dogs and cats until they can find forever homes, and I've been exposed to a lot of diseases that dogs and cats carry. The worst I've ever gotten from an infected animal was ringworm.

Although unpleasant and uncomfortable, it's treatable with topical meds. I don't mean to diminish the Ebola virus in humans, but killing the dog seems like a knee jerk reaction.

And I said:

From WHO, "The virus [ebola] is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission."

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/

From web md, here are 39 diseases you can get directly from animals. Rabies was the first one that popped in my head.

http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/diseases-from-animals-primer

First of all, we know that ebola can be transmitted to human from wild animals, so your above statements are incorrect. Secondly, we know that other diseases can be transmitted to humans from animals, wild and domestic, so again, your statements above are incorrect.

 

[Lyra500]

Okay I read most of the study. It says NOTHING about canines being the host for this disease or spreading it. It talks a lot about France, which to my knowledge has had NO Ebola cases, so why is France being cited as the baseline for the statistics?????

Do the people living in France hunt and eat bush meat? Are they likely to hunt and kill Ebola infected Gorillas or other primates/monkeys? Do they eat the bats that are known to carry Ebola????

If the answer is NO (and it is, unless they are getting bush meat via black market from Africa) then well the whole study is ridiculous. Meaningless. Just plain silly.

It mentions France because they used a group of dogs in France to act as the negative control group - scientific studies usually have a control group so that they can compare them to the study population and argue that any results found in just the study group cannot be assumed to be a chance effect.

They state that dogs in Ebola-infected villages (particularly where there was animal carcass as well as human transmission) had a significantly higher level of antibodies to Ebola virus than the control dogs in France. They say that this could have been just because of a serological reaction to exposure, or because the dogs actually became infected.

They postulate that since none of the dogs became ill, but they definitely had antibodies, they could be asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

They suggest this could be important for the reasons in the excerpts below:

Thus, dogs appear to be the first animal species shown to be naturally and asymptomatically infected by Ebola virus. Asymptomatic Ebola infection in humans has also been observed during outbreaks (18) but is very rare. Although dogs can be asymptomatically infected, they may excrete infectious viral particles in urine, feces, and saliva for a short period before virus clearance, as observed experi- mentally in other animals. Given the frequency of contact between humans and domestic dogs, canine Ebola infec- tion must be considered as a potential risk factor for human infection and virus spread

Human infection could occur through licking, biting, or grooming. Asymptomatically infected dogs could be a potential source of human Ebola outbreaks and of virus spread during human outbreaks, which could explain some epidemiologically unrelated human cases. Dogs might also be a source of human Ebola outbreaks, such as the 1976 Yambuku outbreaks in Democratic Republic of Congo (19), the 1995 Kikwit out- break, some outbreaks that occurred in 1996 and 2004 in Gabon and Republic of Congo (5), and the 1976 (6), 1979 (20), and 2004 (21) outbreaks in Sudan, the sources of which are still unknown. Together, these findings strongly suggest that dogs should be taken into consideration dur- ing the management of human Ebola outbreaks

So, I am not sure this is something which should be dismissed out of hand.

 

[Minette]

Why did they not give the deputies at the very least gloves and face masks?
They already knew Duncan had Ebola by the time they send deputies in.

Because of the assurances from the CDC and WHO that the virus could absolutely NOT be spread through indirect contact.

 

[trigger]

Here is a graph of what each drug does to fight ebola-

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/experimental-drugs-used-for-ebola/1361/

 

[jjenny]

Because of the assurances from the CDC and WHO that the virus could absolutely NOT be spread through indirect contact.

How could CDC or WHO possibly assure that since they KNOW the virus can survive on surfaces for some period of time?

"We’ve been hearing for months that Ebola virus has been shown to survive for days on surfaces, but it’s important to consider a few things."

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ebola-...ce-what-if-it-mutates-1.2041584#ixzz3FbHYri4I

 

[trigger]

Ebola catastrophic effect

The virus can lurk in the body for more than a week before it begins a cascading meltdown of the immune system, blood vessels and vital organs.

Exposure
Ebola virus particles occupy an infected person’s blood and other bodily fluids, which can enter another person through the eyes, mucous membranes, scratches on the skin or from a hypodermic needle — not from from the air or from insects. The bodies of people who have died of the disease are highly infectious. Without protective equipment, shaking hands with an Ebola patient or being within three feet of a patient for long periods of time is less risky, but not advisable.

In small West African villages, the close personal attention given to sick or dead family members can easily spread the disease.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/health/ebola-effect-on-body/

 

[Gardenlady]

Also interesting on El Pais - the hairdresser of the Ebola positive nurse-assistant is in isolation. Apparently she waxed the assistant on the day the assistant was admitted to hospital. hoh:

Also, the Health Councillor/Minister is not too happy with the nurse-assistant. Accuses her of lying, and having hidden the fact that she treated an Ebola patient from her GP and other contacts.

Sounds like a lot of buck passing and finger pointing going on!


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[bessie]

MOD NOTE: Lay off those who already have suffered, and instead focus on the DISEASE itself, and the measures taken to contain it and to control its spread, plus the obstacles.

Going forward, TO's will be issued with no questions asked.

 

[SwampMama]

Bush meat being transported via the black market is a huge business.

Bushmeat black market thrives in Paris http://www.pri.org/stories/2011-03-16/bushmeat-black-market-thrives-paris

Five tonnes of illegal 'bushmeat' being smuggled into Europe each week (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/18/illegal-bushmeat-smuggled-europe) That includes primate meat.

Bush meat is huge black market in many countries that Africans have immigrated to