Ebola outbreak - general thread #2

[chipmunk]

Why not 21 days of monitoring? He visited him in hospital ..... WHILE contagious, correct? I cannot make sense of that . If his family is still quarantined but he is not, what is the difference?

If proper procedures are in place the visitor would have had to don protective clothing.

 

[LinasK]

I was asking about humans not primates. There is a post in this thread explaining that whilst Ebola Reston appeared to have become airborne and spread between primates , Ebola has not been shown to cause airborne transmission in humans.

There was also another post quoting a medical expert in the field who said that at the moment the concentration of virus in saliva and sputum is way lower than in other body fluids which also makes airborne transmission unlikely.

So sneezing is unlikely to spread it in the same way as vomiting is - the liquid produced is completely different and comes from the stomach where concentrations of the virus can be very, very high.

But if Ebola Reston can become airborne, why couldn't Ebola Zaire (Ebola)??

 

[Sonya610]

I was asking about humans not primates.

You do realize that humans ARE primates, right?

Also considering the conditions that 99.9% of human ebola victims are kept in I don't see how they could possibly be sure it has NEVER spread from coughing/sneezing etc...

 

[SweetT]

There is so much ignorance and misunderstanding going around that it would not surprise me if the press have mixed things up anyway.

My understanding was that pregnant women were suffering greatly since about the ONLY medical care available now is for trying to deal with Ebola in those areas where the outbreak is raging because they are totally overwhelmed. So basically every ward is an Ebola ward and women who need emergency obstetric care are being turned away and dying. In some cases, the medical staff who would have treated them have died and the few maternity staff remaining are too scared to deal with patients.

So I would take that description of an Ebola 'ward' with a pinch of salt. I think she went to the hospital as advised by her local clinic having been told she had malaria and they simply did not have capacity to help her and sent her away.

This article is a few weeks old now, but one can only think that things will be even worse now than they were when it was written:

http://www.unfpa.org/public/cache/offonce/home/news/pid/18139





Here is another article:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jinamoore/how-ebola-can-kill-you-even-when-you-dont-have-ebola#4icw4kq



.

So if it is true that Marthalene's family were told she had malaria, then it is still perfectly credible that she was taken to hospital and turned away - and if she was turned away then at no point will she or her family have been given a diagnosis of Ebola before she died.

Those are also reasons that the actual number of ebola infected people is way more than what's being reported

 

[Lyra500]

Yup! Another sick Liberian boards a plane for the U.S. Probably heard that Duncan got hospitalized here for Ebola. The word is out. We need to close our borders.

Snark alert

Of course.

Because in Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world everyone has TV and the internet to find this stuff out.

 

[chipmunk]

I was asking about humans not primates. There is a post in this thread explaining that whilst Ebola Reston appeared to have become airborne and spread between primates , Ebola has not been shown to cause airborne transmission in humans.

There was also another post quoting a medical expert in the field who said that at the moment the concentration of virus in saliva and sputum is way lower than in other body fluids which also makes airborne transmission unlikely.

So sneezing is unlikely to spread it in the same way as vomiting is - the liquid produced is completely different and comes from the stomach where concentrations of the virus can be very, very high.

:goodpost:

 

[SCHMAE]

I was asking about humans not primates. There is a post in this thread explaining that whilst Ebola Reston appeared to have become airborne and spread between primates , Ebola has not been shown to cause airborne transmission in humans.

There was also another post quoting a medical expert in the field who said that at the moment the concentration of virus in saliva and sputum is way lower than in other body fluids which also makes airborne transmission unlikely.

So sneezing is unlikely to spread it in the same way as vomiting is - the liquid produced is completely different and comes from the stomach where concentrations of the virus can be very, very high.

Actually I was just reading on Reston earlier and saw this pretty disturbing news ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus

''On 11 December 2008, pigs from farms slightly north of Manila, Philippines tested positive for the virus. The CDC and the World Health Organization are investigating.[18] On 23 January 2009, Philippine health officials announced that a hog farm worker had been infected with the virus. Although the man was asymptomatic and the source of the infection is uncertain, this could represent the first case of pig-to-human transmission of Reston virus'''

A ) It is wiki, so it may be untrue. B ) if it were true, it sure did not spread beyond that , which leads me to believe it may have been a false test result. All food for thought though.

ETA Its' important to remember that a virus can mutate at any time without warning into something new and different. Remember there was a time when Swine Flu was only found in a SWINE ! Somehow it jumped species...... that is a story for another day though

 

[popsicle]

If proper procedures are in place the visitor would have had to don protective clothing.

Really?

 

[Sonya610]

Snark alert

Of course.

Because in Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world everyone has TV and the internet to find this stuff out.

Since the Liberian government made statements saying they intended to prosecute Duncan then I would assume it HAS been all over Liberian radio and tv. The gov is no doubt worried that other countries will ban travel from Liberia so they would have every reason to advertise that is ILLEGAL to lie about having contact with ebola patients and then travel on the airlines.

 

[SeekingJana]

There is a lot of fear here, and I understand it. I respect everyone's right to be afraid and to voice those fears.
However, in the interest of mental health and also faith in the principles of ISOLATION, I would like to reiterate:

Every hospital in the USA knows how to put a patient in Isolation, and every nurse who's been a nurse for any length of time has taken care of patients in isolation.

It does NOT matter what the name of the disease is. Contact isolation is contact isolation.

If hospitals need to re-educate their staff personnel on how to apply, wear and dispose of the disposable parts of their isolation gear, then I hope they are holding inservices right now.
There is NO excuse for those with direct patient care not knowing how to use isolation personal protection gear. Ignorance is not an excuse.
The next patient could turn up in a town with one hospital and a population of 10,000. Those nurses, doctors, resp. therapists, and ancillary personnel delivering supplies have to be as prepared as nurses at Johns Hopkins do.
The equipment is the same. The procedures are the same.

Fear is driving thinking. This is dangerous to our health care providers and it has to stop and go back to the elements of isolation.
Ebola is spread by direct contact between an infected Ebola positive person's bodily secretions and the mucous membranes of another person.
Period.

 

[SCHMAE]

You do realize that humans ARE primates, right?

Also considering the conditions that 99.9% of human ebola victims are kept in I don't see how they could possibly be sure it has NEVER spread from coughing/sneezing etc...

:gaah::gaah::gaah:

 

[Lyra500]

But if Ebola Reston can become airborne, why couldn't Ebola Zaire (Ebola)??

I did not say it couldn't, but at the moment there is no evidence to show that it is air borne in humans, so suggesting that people on the plane have contracted Ebola via the air recycling system is misleading and ramping up the concern levels without foundation.

If you or anyone else have links to reliable sources suggesting that Ebola Zaire is or is about to become airborne in humans right now, then please post them. Otherwise, this is just scaremongering without evidence to back it up.

If people are genuinely worried about stopping this virus from mutating to become airborne, then they should be lobbying their governments to support the affected countries in Western Africa to get this outbreak under control. Not with pledges and pretty speeches, but with action and adequate supplies.

China, Uganda, Italy, France and Cuba all have organisations and teams over there helping.

Even so, countries are running out of Personal Protective Equipment, do not have enough beds etc. This is a real global threat and we need to sort it out.

 

[chipmunk]

Lyra500-

Great info on airborne fluids. A poster did catch the humans vs primates though. Please clarify. I know what you mean. A virologist on twitter was explaining this exact info a few weeks ago.

Interested in your opinion about the potential of cleaning sprays dispersing the virus I as suggested earlier as a theory in cross infection in the caged monkey event. It depends on distance between the animals & force of the sprayer. Surfaces close to the spray could be contaminated from droplets. Do you agree? Thx.

 

[Lyra500]

You do realize that humans ARE primates, right?

Also considering the conditions that 99.9% of human ebola victims are kept in I don't see how they could possibly be sure it has NEVER spread from coughing/sneezing etc...

Yes - but we do not contract or die from Ebola Reston.

 

[SweetT]

Apparently not all nurses are prepared according to this http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpr...they-are-unprepared-to-handle-ebola-patients/

 

[chipmunk]

Really?

Lol, just trying to reduce any possible overly anxious fear. Not that I think the hospital necessarily knows what its doing.

 

[SeekingJana]

Lyra500-

Great info on airborne fluids. A poster did catch the humans vs primates though. Please clarify. I know what you mean. A virologist on twitter was explaining this exact info a few weeks ago.

Interested in your opinion about the potential of cleaning sprays dispersing the virus I as suggested earlier as a theory in cross infection in the caged monkey event. It depends on distance between the animals & force of the sprayer. Surfaces close to the spray could be contaminated from droplets. Do you agree? Thx.

One of the principles of isolation of body fluids is that spray cleaners are NOT used. Surfaces are wiped with cleaner applied to the surface from a no-spray container. Sprays also miss sections of the surface. You clean the surface from the center, or the obviously cleanest part to the outermost or dirtiest surfaces, and then wipe it UP, not spreading the solution nor the contaminant AROUND. Similar to the clean up of a toxic chemical. You don't smear it around, you don't use sprays. You CONTAIN the pathogen while cleaning surfaces

 

[chipmunk]

I caught that too, no worries. I'm with you, the best scientists question everything and know there is so much they don't know -for sure.

 

[elfie]

But if Ebola Reston can become airborne, why couldn't Ebola Zaire (Ebola)??

It would require a mutation.

 

[chipmunk]

One of the principles of isolation of body fluids is that spray cleaners are NOT used. Surfaces are wiped with cleaner applied to the surface from a no-spray container. Sprays also miss sections of the surface. You clean the surface from the center, or the obviously cleanest part to the outermost or dirtiest surfaces, and then wipe it UP, not spreading the solution nor the contaminant AROUND. Similar to the clean up of a toxic chemical. You don't smear it around, you don't use sprays. You CONTAIN the pathogen while cleaning surfaces

I know. Yet I'm still seeing some who think they're experts suggest the use of a spray. Guess they're too lazy to use gloves. The RN who attended my mom didn't know bleach doesn't kill C-diff. I had to train her. I bought the right solution and had them use it.