Ebola and Africa: Why It's Running Rampant There and Why It Would Have a Much Tougher Time Here

First off, let me preface this by saying that Ebola is a horrific disease. I would wish it on no one. If you should ever contract it, your only hope is that with time and good supportive care, your body and immune system will be strong enough to outlast it as it runs its course and ravages your body. And you will likely wish you were dead more than once during the process.

That being said I want to highly some very good reasons why, while we should all be worried and keep an eye on it, none of us should live in fear of the same situation that is currently occurring in Africa. It is highly unlikely that Ebola, even if it reaches our shores, would have the same freedom to run rampant here that it does there for several reasons, and I'm going to try to outline those.

Let me start by saying yes, Ebola is only as far away from anywhere in the world as one plane flight.

The virus — which has an incubation period of a few days to three weeks — could easily travel to the USA through infected travelers, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"A case very well could fly out of Africa, only to be detected in some distant country," says Osterholm, who served as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration on bioterrorism.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, understand that Ebola is NOT anywhere near as contagious as your average cold or flu.

While Ebola is a fearsome disease, it's actually much harder to spread than respiratory infections, such as influenza or measles ... people cannot spread the Ebola virus simply by sneezing or coughing.

Remember, the whole premise behind the movie Outbreak was that an Ebola-type virus became airborne in the manner of the common cold or flu - through sneezing or coughing. Aerosolized droplets do not spread Ebola, but if someone drowning in their own bloody vomit were to spew across your face (or in the can you were next in line to use), that would be different. The reality is that the presence of the virus in just saliva is much lower than in other body fluids, so it's harder to get it from just saliva.

But Ebola does spread readily through body fluids, such as blood and saliva, Osterholm says. On a plane, a sick person could potentially contaminate the bathroom if he or she vomits or has diarrhea.

We're also seeing the virus now spreading to the health care workers, themselves. This has to do with several factors that have to do with their working conditions. These are countries with poor facilities, limited facilities, little to no local health care worker support and just a general lack of everything.

The virus also has spread to health care workers in Africa, where six or seven patients may share a single hospital room. Hospitals in developing countries also may lack certain infection-control measures — such as special containers to dispose of syringes — that are standard in U.S. facilities, Osterholm says. Wearing full-body protective garments – commonly called "moon suits" – is also more of a challenge in open-air clinics, because the restrictive outfits can cause people to quickly overheat.

More help is needed from around the world, Morse said. He received an e-mail today from a friend who is treating patients in the region and working 12- to 24-hour days. "When people tell me they're working flat-out 20 hours a day, obviously more resources are needed," he said.

The region needs more health care workers, especially those well trained in infection control procedures, he said, more equipment to keep health care workers and family members safe while treating patients, and more training for the general public about how to avoid and cope with the virus. "With something this size, it's obvious that we're under resourced right now," Morse said.

So they're understaffed, have not enough equipment, are working in relatively primitive conditions for handling something of this nature, and what protective gear they have they can't use without it endangering their health, too, and after a while, anyone working like this will get sloppy and start making mistakes compounded by their inability to use the proper gear without risking heat collapse. It's a wonder they made it to July when this started in March.

Now, to the second and more insidious problem: the Africans themselves. They don't trust modern medicine. Period. Stop. End of sentence. Imagine being a modern medical professional sent back in time to try to combat the Black Death. You'd be overwhelmed and confronted with problems of this nature, too. It would be a relatively lost cause ... and we even have a cure for the disease!

Ebola has spread in Africa partly because of religious customs, in which family members wash the bodies of deceased relatives to prepare them for burial.

And that's the tamest way to put it. If you've been following the news, you are aware of the manhunt in Sierra Leone where a patient's family "kidnapped" her from the hospital to take her to a traditional healer? She died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

Amadu Sisi, a senior doctor at King Harman hospital in the capital Freetown, from which the patient was taken, said on Saturday that police found her in the house of a healer.

Her family refused to hand her over and a struggle ensued with police, who finally retrieved her and sent her to hospital, he said.

"She died in the ambulance on the way to another hospital," Sisi said.

How many of her family are now infected ... or the police ... or the healer ... or others? If she died, she was clearly in the later stages of the disease.

Police were guarding the country's main Ebola hospital in Kenema in the West African country's remote east on Saturday, where dozens are receiving treatment for the virus.

Thousands had gathered outside the clinic the day before, threatening to burn it down and remove the patients. Residents said police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds and that a 9-year-old boy was shot in the leg by a police bullet.

The protest was sparked by a former nurse who had told a crowd at a nearby fish market that "Ebola was unreal and a gimmick aimed at carrying out cannibalistic rituals".

And you have people threatening to burn down the only health facilities they have because they are sure that the people inside are eating the bodies. Would this happen in a country familiar with modern medicine? And if you think it would, would it happen quickly enough to allow a plague of Ebola of this magnitude?

Post Script and Part II

Samaritan’s Purse, which is leading treatment of Ebola patients in Liberia, said on Sunday it will end its outreach in Lofa, a community in the north, after an attack on a team of health workers who came to collect the body of a person who was suspected of dying from the disease.

The organization’s outreach team until now has transported suspected patients between villages and clinics and also bodies of Ebola victims.

A nearby community from which it was going to collect a body put up a roadblock, attacked the ambulance and broke the windshield and tore up the tires with a machete, according to the group's country director Kendell Kauffeldt.

"We will continue to manage the center up there, but we will stop outreach, we will not go into communities to retrieve bodies or patients at this point

So basically, what Samaritan's Purse Does is operate an ambulance of sorts for the victims, both still living and dead. They remove the bodies which are highly infectious, and they remove the sick for treatment.

You have people not allowing in ambulance service and attacking the ambulance. How quickly would things deteriorate to that level here? Most people in 1st world countries understand that people who have died of illness need to be removed or the illness lingers and risks infecting the healthy. They'd be glad of Samaritan's Purse.

Anyhow, when it comes to comparing why Ebola would have a harder time getting established here, you have to compare cultural attitudes too. I'm not saying it could never happen, but I think it would be much, much harder. Our behaviors and attitudes do not lend themselves toward allowing the disease to keep spreading at least, not at first.

www.usatoday.com...

www.usatoday.com...

a reply to: ketsuko

Thanks for the informative update on this illness and how it spreads ketsuko. If only you could mass sterilize / neutralize these infections before they could alter or grow in numbers infected. Would make chemtrails more useful like bio chemtrails or meditrails...

Just a thought

a reply to: ketsuko

Thank you!

A million stars and flags!

+***************************************************************************************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************************************************************************************** ***********

A level headed look at the siltation. Change from the fear mongering going on here.

All I can say is pray for the people in Africa and if you have a few bucks to spare there are plenty of very, very selfless people whose organizations could use any aid you can send their way.

a reply to: ketsuko

All well and good, and most informative, except....

The fact Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol have become infected is very worrisome. Either they were careless in their precautions to avoid infection or something has changed in the virus.

Just sayin'

a reply to: loam

Likley accidents.

As ketsuko has stated the situation and equipment they are using is dire.

They will be working long hours in hot and uncomfortable PPE. From personal experience even in well maintained well equipped labs with normal hours accidents happened.


In some of these places a centrifuge consists of someone attaching test tubes to a piece of string and swinging round there heads (NO JOKE!) The facility's and hours there people are working are just accidents waiting to happen.

a reply to: ketsuko

Awesome analysis. S&F!

However, here's hoping that cutting off water to about 150000 citizens of Detroit...and other possible disaster situations don't arise and exasperate the virus if it does hit the shores of North America.

I really hope they thought about the health and sanitary issues that will arise from cutting off water to that many people in a small area.

Detroit cuts water supply

Analysis of clinical samples from suspected Lassa fever cases in Sierra Leone showed that about two-thirds of the patients had been exposed to other emerging diseases, and nearly nine percent tested positive for Ebola virus. The findings, published in this month’s edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases, demonstrates that Ebola virus has been circulating in the region since at least 2006—well before the current outbreak. The research team found evidence of dengue fever, West Nile, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya, and Marburg viruses in the samples collected.

First author Randal J. Schoepp, Ph.D., recently returned from Liberia and Sierra Leone, where he spent six weeks helping to set up an Ebola testing laboratory and training local personnel to run diagnostic tests on suspected Ebola hemorrhagic fever clinical samples. He is part of a team from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

USAMRIID has been working in the region since 2006, when it began a collaborative project to develop and refine diagnostic tests for the Lassa fever virus endemic to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. As those assays have matured, the scientists have begun to optimize additional tests for a number of emerging diseases.

Because the team was working on disease identification and diagnostics, and had pre-positioned assays in the region, said Schoepp, “We had people on hand who were already evaluating samples and volunteered to start testing right away when the current Ebola outbreak started.”

The laboratory testing site in Kenema is supported by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center-Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System. Other contributors to the work include the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office-Critical Reagents Program, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program, and the DTRA Joint Science and Technology Office.

COL Erin P. Edgar, commander of USAMRIID, called the project “a great example of medical diplomacy at work.”

www.usamriid.army.mil...

2+2 =

a reply to: Sparkymedic

Yeah.

May sound a good idea to make them pay there bill but the ramification could mean dysentery and other diarrhoeal diseases ect

a reply to: METACOMET

I have also though that about Seira leone

Lassa fever is endemic to the area with tens of thousands of cases a year.

Lassa is a haemorrhagic virus like Ebola and its symptom can be exactly the same. Unless you do a in depth lap analysis which they rarely do because of money and lack of facility you wont know the difference. Fact is a number who die on the Lassa wards could very well have been ebola and you wouldn't have know.

a reply to: Sparkymedic

In Detroit, most of those people do actually have the ability to pay their bills. They just choose not to. It actually says that in multiple reports on the problem. Detroit is a city with rampant corruption. They've let people get away with not paying for so long that a lot of people who could pay just have heard from people who don't that they haven't been paying and no one does anything about it, so they stop paying because why bother? It's so bad that even big businesses that could easily afford to pay don't pay.

So that problem is being painted as one solely of grinding poverty, but it's really much more one of government ineptitude.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: METACOMET

I have also though that about Seira leone

Lassa fever is endemic to the area with tens of thousands of cases a year.

Lassa is a haemorrhagic virus like Ebola and its symptom can be exactly the same. Unless you do a in depth lap analysis which they rarely do because of money and lack of facility you wont know the difference. Fact is a number who die on the Lassa wards could very well have been ebola and you wouldn't have know.

Now there's another nightmare ... how many are having one disease that doesn't need to kill them, but wind up catching the other because the two can't be told apart without testing? And in the meantime, they're all in the same wards?

a reply to: ketsuko

A nearby community from which it was going to collect a body put up a roadblock, attacked the ambulance and broke the windshield and tore up the tires with a machete, according to the group's country director Kendell Kauffeldt.

"We will continue to manage the center up there, but we will stop outreach, we will not go into communities to retrieve bodies or patients at this point

Thats about as scary as it gets as far as putting the brakes on further cases there. The potential in that community is Ebola spreads and when it reaches a tipping point the fear and panic produced in those people will convince them to run from their local area and hide from authorities elsewhere as well.

I heard yesterday somewhere that roadblocks are were being established, guess we'll nix that.

The problem with saying Ebola isn't airborne is just like the OP said, a matter of coming into contact with hosts that are in the stages of extreme amplification. At this point the body is becoming one big glob of virus. The gut lining and intestinal walls slough off and turn to black bile, projectile vomit, bleeding from pores and diarrhea are hot with the bug. It is spewing out of every orifice, seeking fresh victims.

When a person dies of Ebola the end is bloody and those who witness that or have to clean up the after effects are horrified. The room is awash with blood, all of it infectious.

Early on, saliva and blood aren't mixed, but later near the end the bodies connective tissues and lining break down mixing with ordinary bodily fluids. Then a simple sneeze is highly contagious.

Overall it has to do with the virus programming that, much like a parasite, actually keeps the host alive as long as possible balanced by the simultaneous progression of producing as many virus as possible before the host dies.

This is the most insidious aspect of Hemorrhagic fevers. They don't call it hemorrhaging for no reason.

a reply to: ketsuko

Yeah there are reports of suspected Lassa victims that don't respond to the anti viral for unknown reasons.

Was it Lassa?

Villages have been decimated in the rural community's and it just put down to Lassa, was it?

a reply to: crazyewok

originally posted by: crazyewok
Likley accidents.

Perhaps.

But these would have to be 'big' accidents, if transmission is as difficult as currently stated.

Brantly was the medical director of the center. (...and Samuel Brisbane was a leading Liberian Ebola doctor.)

Moreover, the 'careless' theory is already being disputed:

Strickland called Brantly “meticulous,” saying that’s why he was given the job in the first place. “We have every confidence that those protocols were not breached,” she said. The group is investigating how Brantly may have been exposed, according to Strickland.
Link.

I dunno......

originally posted by: ketsuko
All I can say is pray for the people in Africa and if you have a few bucks to spare there are plenty of very, very selfless people whose organizations could use any aid you can send their way.

The issue is you need to actually locate charities that give the money to the needy... So many charities just use the money for overhead of the charity with little going to the people in need. When I donate money, I want it to go to people in need, not pay for some guys salary...

Do you know of any good relief efforts in West Africa where the money actually goes to the needy? If so, I will happily send some money their way.

Ebola is a very scary disease... I pray for those who are living there, living through it and treating it..

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Sparkymedic

In Detroit, most of those people do actually have the ability to pay their bills. They just choose not to. It actually says that in multiple reports on the problem. Detroit is a city with rampant corruption. They've let people get away with not paying for so long that a lot of people who could pay just have heard from people who don't that they haven't been paying and no one does anything about it, so they stop paying because why bother? It's so bad that even big businesses that could easily afford to pay don't pay.

So that problem is being painted as one solely of grinding poverty, but it's really much more one of government ineptitude.

Either way, it won't be good for health and sanitary issues. Poverty or not. Cutting off water because imaginary fiat currency isn't being paid just seems like a BAD idea and a lose-lose solition to a much bigger situation. Especially if there is a threat of spreading disease and illness.

I think that once the CDC sounds the Ebola alert in the US, it will be kept quiet, contained, and quarantined. Just like the Junta virus outbreak.

Ebola and its viral cousins may be the depopulation of the entire continent......virtually....
Now who would possibly benefit by such an horrific result?
I understand the Chinese have built empty cities there somewhere.....US Army African command has become a separate entity and its growing....
I think Africa is in for a rough ride in the next decades to come......