Ebola Epidemic Could Become Global Crisis

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
With the present rate of increase and the fact that it has moved into major cities with international airports, and the fact that symptoms can take up to three weeks to show up, it really is just a matter of time before this bug goes Hollywood. It will take some ridiculous efforts from every country involved to stop this without making significant advances. We cant even get multiple nations to work together on something that's fun. No way we will ever see the cooperation and resources necessary to stop this coming from a multinational effort. There is too much inclination to let the other guy handle the heavy part. Even in the face of disaster instead of stepping out of the way they will stand there yelling for help that isn't coming.

Guess we should just call it quits then eh?

a reply to: clenz

Haha...well, I would rather find a way to get people to work together toward a common goal. Especially when that goal is beneficial to so many. It would be nice to think humanity can start thinking bigger. If people could take down the borders for a while, just for a while, and start working like one planet, maybe we could make some serious gains. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". If we are all enemies of ebola, then we should all be friends, at least until we kick it's virus ass. Then we can go back to hating on each other and worrying about who has the most money or the shiniest car/girlfriend/wristwatch/whatever.

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: clenz

Haha...well, I would rather find a way to get people to work together toward a common goal. Especially when that goal is beneficial to so many. It would be nice to think humanity can start thinking bigger. If people could take down the borders for a while, just for a while, and start working like one planet, maybe we could make some serious gains. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". If we are all enemies of ebola, then we should all be friends, at least until we kick it's virus ass. Then we can go back to hating on each other and worrying about who has the most money or the shiniest car/girlfriend/wristwatch/whatever.

See, that is a much better post, and I agree. Don't think that just because it isn't happening, and things are looking bad, that it won't ever happen. There is still hope to stem it in Africa.

Another Update:

Ebola is threatening the very existence of Liberia as the killer virus spreads like "wild fire", the defence minister warned Tuesday, following a grim World Health Organization assessment that the worst is yet to come. After predicting an "exponential increase" in infections across West Africa, the WHO warned that Liberia, which has accounted for half of all fatalities, could initially only hope to slow the contagion, not stop it. "Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence," Defense Minister Brownie Samukai told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday. The disease is "now spreading like wild fire, devouring everything in its path," he said.


Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke...

Sounds like a script from Hollywood but it is real. Liberia could be a dead Country!


And another one tests positive in Lagos:

allafrica.com...

Another person has tested positive to the Ebola Virus Disease in Lagos.

The Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu disclosed this in Abuja yesterday.

He identified the person as the fiancé of one of those who had primary a contact with Liberian-American who transmuted the virus to Nigeria, Patrick Sawyer.

This brings total confirmed cases to 19, some 50 days after the virus was first introduced into Nigeria by Sawyer.

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: clenz

Haha...well, I would rather find a way to get people to work together toward a common goal. Especially when that goal is beneficial to so many. It would be nice to think humanity can start thinking bigger. If people could take down the borders for a while, just for a while, and start working like one planet, maybe we could make some serious gains. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". If we are all enemies of ebola, then we should all be friends, at least until we kick it's virus ass. Then we can go back to hating on each other and worrying about who has the most money or the shiniest car/girlfriend/wristwatch/whatever.

Wotta thought. Here's hoping the fact the Ebola Epidemic is threatening the global oil supply might move a few ...butts in the right direction.

A new cure could be on its way:

Ebola breakthrough by Liverpool University researchers may lead to cure .

Liverpool researchers have made a breakthrough that could lead to a cure being developed for the ebola virus which is currently sweeping through West Africa.

Experts at the University of Liverpool have stumbled across an existing drug – used for severe heart disease – which could be adapted to fight the deadly virus.

In collaboration with Public Health England, the team have been looking at how Ebola virus hijacks the proteins inside cells and trying to find ways of stopping this from happening.

Their work led them to look at a protein called VP24 which disrupts the body’s ability to fight the virus.

From there they looked at whether any existing drugs already block the function of this particular protein and found ouabain – a heart drug which when administered can reduce the virus’ replication.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk...

Even if it doesn't hit our shores, Country.... the Peoples' in the Countries affected need help. It is such a misery. Perhaps, if we fear it spreading globally, something might be done about it. I agree with the comment about the oil....

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

Cool. There's a lot of "repurposing" and off-label use of existent drugs being considered for Ebola treatment. Ouabain looks better to me than statins, but I don't know much about it.

Interesting ouabain overview.

a reply to: soficrow

Maybe we should all start eating these plants now.

foxgloves (“digitalis”), species of the strophanthus group of plants, sea onion (“scilla maritima”), in lily-of-the-valley (“convallaria”),

This is a map of reported cases from yesterday: if I'm reading right, it shows all reported cases just from yesterday alone. Liberia is completely covered.



www.pbs.org...

map from Healthmap.org shows reported Ebola cases on Sept. 10.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

I did read the map wrong (although it says underneath the map that these are the cases reported on Sept 10). What it actually meant was these are the cases up to Sept 10th.

So thats the site which needs attention not me.

ha ha.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

NO!!!!! ...that stuff'll kill you!

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

Nigeria will FLIP when they see that map - the government is in full denial. Health Minister Chukwu keeps tripping over all the stories and mixing them up.

There's a 20% chance the disease could be here this month, but experts are optimistic that the U.S. could handle it. 'We would not expect any real transmission,' co-author Ira Longini said.

So now they are starting to plant the seeds of this hitting the USA. Wonderful.

www.nydailynews.com...

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist
It looks like drops of blood falling on Africa.

a reply to: soficrow

some latest info from Unicef:

The unseen killer: covering and fighting Ebola in West Africa

It's an awful, but an important story and it's a difficult one to cover.

The region has all been all but locked down. Land borders have been sealed and flights have been cancelled. There is no way to fly from Kenya to Sierra Leone, Guinea or the hardest hit country, Liberia.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

That map seems to be taken from healthmap.org. That site lets you click on each alert (red dot) to read the news story behind it.

Pretty cool site.


healthmap.org...

a reply to: Richn777

It is from that site. I linked it in my post.



And I just found this too:

The deadliest outbreak of Ebola in history could spread to over 15 more African countries and affect up to 70 million people, a study has found.

A map, based on a model created by a team led by University of Oxford scientists, predicts that in animal populations the Ebola virus could be circulating across a vast swathe of forested West and Central Africa.

The area stretches across seven countries which have already reported Ebola transmission from animals to humans, as well as other countries including Ghana, Cameroon, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Tanzania and Madagascar.

From Yahoonews.

uk.news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: drwill
a reply to: Thurisaz
a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

"There has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice." The right mutation could make Ebola airborne.

We can't quarantine Africa or even just West Africa - there always will be global corporations after the resources - diamonds, gold, iron ore, bauxite, you name it. And even if public air travel is stopped, there's nothing saying private jets won't continue to fly in and out to check on corporate interests.

Virologist Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute, linked to Eugenics policies, says we need to just let it "burn itself out" in West Africa. Right. Let it spread, mutate and evolve, and infect animals with the new airborne strain. Then what? Napalm Africa to kill all the infected animals - and now-immune humans?

What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola

....The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world.

....The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.

If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.

Why are public officials afraid to discuss this? They don’t want to be accused of screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater....

This is about humanitarianism and self-interest. If we wait for vaccines and new drugs to arrive to end the Ebola epidemic, instead of taking major action now, we risk the disease’s reaching from West Africa to our own backyards.

Michael T. Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

New DATA:

The death toll from the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has reached 2,400 from at least 4,784 cases, chief of the World Health Organization, or WHO, Margaret Chan said Friday. Chan reportedly said at a U.N. news conference in Geneva that these numbers were likely understimated and that the deadly outbreak requires a massive emergency response.

www.ibtimes.com...


The good news is that many more Country's are sending Medical Staff to deal with it and more Money to deal with it.