Ebola: Facts, Opinions, and Speculations.

a reply to: ikonoklast

They define Internet use as using it just once in the last 12 months.
Plus what percentage who speak English have used the Internet?

Them sort of things affect the probability.

If they caught one, how many do you think they might not have caught?

South African woman infected with the Ebola virus has been caught at the Lagos international airport today, flying in from the Air Morok flight.

The woman, whose name is Folswe Elizabeth Maria was said to have landed at the Lagos airport. She was however screened and the virus detected on her. She was from Casablanca in Morocco.

She was arrested immediately and taken into quarantine.

South African with Ebola Arrested in Lagos Airport



ikon, that's a great point. Maybe send an admin a query on if there are members from over there?

The disease could also become airborne. And that would be disastrous: the infection rate would increase exponentially.

"Even a single change in the genome can have huge consequences," says Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg.
He confirms that mutations can increase the contagiousness of a virus.

Scary stuff right there.

www.dw.de...

originally posted by: joho99
a reply to: ikonoklast

They define Internet use as using it just once in the last 12 months.
Plus what percentage who speak English have used the Internet?

Them sort of things affect the probability.

Good points. Of course, that just makes me more curious, especially since no one else has spoken up to say they've seen people from the affected countries posting about Ebola on ATS. And when I get curious enough, I dig.

So the question is: are there enough literate, English-speaking people who use the Internet regularly in the countries affected by Ebola that it would be unusual that we haven't seen any creating threads or posts on ATS about the Ebola outbreak?

Some facts and figures:

Looks like we can scratch out Guinea and Senegal because the official language is French and there are not even easily available statistics about how many people speak English there. In Liberia there are a lot of English speakers but not enough data available to make any educated on guesses about how often people access the Internet.

In Sierra Leone, which is hard-hit by Ebola, there are 4,900,000 English-speaking people. English is the primary language for 500,000 and there is a 42.9% literacy rate. That gives you somewhere between 214,500 to 2,102,100 literate, English speaking people. 1.34% use the Internet enough they have Facebook accounts. So you have between 2874 and 28,168 literate, English-speaking people who use the Internet often enough they have Facebook accounts.

In Nigeria (not nearly as hard-hit by Ebola), it's hard to know what percentage of the population speaks English, but there are 900,000 for whom English is the primary language. I've seen estimates that at least 18 million speak English, so let's go with that for the estimated high end. With a 61% literacy rate, that's between 549,000 and 10,980,000 literate, English-speaking people. 3.74% use the Internet enough they have Facebook accounts. So you have between 20,532 and 410,652 people who are literate, who speak English, and who use the Internet often enough that they have Facebook accounts.

You can probably double all those numbers based on the assumption that having a Facebook account implies at least some level of basic literacy.

So I still think it's unusual that we're not seeing Ebola posts or threads from ATS members who live in the affected areas. And that makes me still more curious...

References:

Wikipedia: List of countries by English-speaking population
Languages of Guinea
Senegal
Wikipedia: List of countries by number of broadband Internet subscriptions
UNICEF: Nigeria Statistics
UNICEF: Sierra Leone Statistics
Internet Monitor: Access in Nigeria
Internet Monitor: Access in Senegal
Internet World Stats: Africa
ITU Statistics
UNICEF: Liberia Statistics
UNICEF: Guinea Statistics
UNICEF: Senegal

It seems there are so many things that should have been taken in consideration. They are screening flights mainly from the infected countries, while the amount of people infected has doubled the area of screening is still pretty much same. Area what should be screened is the whole continent of Africa.

The way infected are buried in Liberia. The graves are less than one meter deep and dogs unbury them and eat those. Why burial graves, these bodies should be burnt. Old English law defined the deep of graves to be at least 6 feet deep, so corpses do not spread the plague.

Dogs are digging up the corpses of Ebola victims buried in shallow graves in Liberia and eating them in the street, villagers have claimed. Furious residents of Johnsonville Township, outside capital Monrovia, raised the alarm after packs of wild dogs were spotted digging up corpses from a specially-designated 'Ebola graveyard', dragging them into the open and feeding on their flesh.

LINK

From Russian news
Ebola threatens worldwide

The Ebola virus spreads further, threatening to become a pandemic.
In the fight against Ebola virus world is defeated.
The epidemic, which began in West Africa threatens to become a global problem. This was at a meeting of the United Nations declared the chairman of the organization "Doctors without Borders" Joanne Liu. She also urged the United States to intensify efforts in the fight against fever.
After six months, the worst in the history of the epidemic of Ebola virus, the world faced the threat of a pandemic.

At the moment, the World Health Organization is active in Africa, affected by the epidemic, mortality is as high as 95%. However, representatives of the organizations complain about the constant lack of funds, medicines and specialists.

On the sorry state of humanitarian missions in Africa, WHO says that new patients are forced to send home to die, since they no longer have a place. In Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, and the flesh of the victims of the epidemic lies in the street, even in the capital - Monrovia. This critical situation only worsens an already difficult situation in this region of the world.

LINK

a reply to: ikonoklast

That might be that there is not so many ATS users there, to face the life which is in Africa i doubt that the general public is much interested about what happens in the western world. They have plenty of issues on their own to deal with.

a reply to: ikonoklast

www.alexa.com...

South Africa is ranked the 5th country to vist here with only 2.9%

Unfortunately we can not see the rest unless someone has a subscription.

But we have much bigger country's like India and china with billions of people that have not made it into the top 5

Another possibility could be local Internet censorship.

a reply to: dollukka
a reply to: joho99

All of this is possible. But a couple more things are probably worth noting. Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia do not normally have problems with Internet censorship or surveillance according to Wikipedia. And according to Facebook, there are over 1000 people who like the ATS Facebook page and who live in these countries.

So I think it's still weird that we are not hearing from people in these countries on ATS about the Ebola outbreak. But I guess we may never know why or whether it really means anything.

a reply to: ikonoklast

i made a post before but can not remember what country it was but basically they had banned any mention of ebola in the press.

From what i have seen most governments fear the spread of panic just as much as the spread of ebola so would probably take some measures to stop the spread of panic.

I think personally it is probably down to a combination of factors.


Have you looked for any forums local to the country's?

a reply to: ikonoklast

... I still think it's unusual that we're not seeing Ebola posts or threads from ATS members who live in the affected areas. And that makes me still more curious...

Shouldn't. ATS used to have an international and cosmopolitan membership, but no longer. The Yankee-centric members got rid of them all.

For those interested, I've updated the Ebola charts in the charts thread with the latest WHO numbers released September 12, 2014 (covering through August 7, 2014). They are split over 5 posts in the thread because there are so many now. Here is a link to the first of the 5 posts:

Updated Ebola Charts

AfDB offers $150 mln to help West Africa handle Ebola fallout

PARIS (Reuters) - The African Development Bank (AfDB) told West African countries hardest hit by an Ebola epidemic they were willing to give $150 million to help balance their public finances, but they must first show they are doing everything possible to improve their health systems. Economic growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone could decline by almost 3.5 percentage points and Guinea 1 percentage point, exposing financing gaps totalling $100 million to $130 million in each of the three countries, the IMF said on Thursday. Efforts to stem the spread of Ebola have disrupted regional trade and transport and domestic commerce in several states. "The urgency is to stabilise public finances," AfDB chief Donald Kaberuka told Le Monde newspaper in remarks published on Saturday. "The bank is ready to unblock $150 million to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to consolidate their budgets and their currencies." "But it will depend on extra effort that they improve their health systems and food safety," he said. AfDB announced in August it would donate $60 million to help train medical workers and purchase supplies to fight the Ebola outbreak. The death toll has risen to more than 2,400 people out of 4,784 cases with the number of new Ebola cases in West Africa growing faster than authorities can manage them, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. Kaberuka, who predicted a drop in growth of 2 percent to 2.5 percent for the three countries, said the bank would soon discuss how to divide up the $150 million.

I hope they keep a eye on all this money that different organizations are contributing so it is not just ending up in corrupt officials pockets.

a reply to: joho99

Governments and corporations are throwing money and equipment at this, but it will do no good if there is no one there willing use it for fear of contracting Ebola. And honestly, who in their right mind would volunteer at this point?

This is not going to end well.

Some Health Care Workers are beginning to question suggestions for PPE:

Respiratory protection for healthcare workers treating ebola virus disease (evd): are facemasks sufficient to meet occupational health and safety obligations?

Unlike past outbreaks, the current outbreak of EVD has not been contained and has resulted in social unrest, breakdown in law and order, shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and depletion of the healthcare workforce, with over 240 healthcare workers (HCWs) becoming infected and 120 HCW deaths as of 25thAugust 2014 (World Health Organization (WHO) 2014c).

As has been said here in numerous threads by myself and others, this outbreak is making new rules as we go. The world's response has been playing catch up the entire time; with the notable exceptuon of MSF.

Current evidence suggests that human to human transmission occurs predominantly though direct contact with blood and body secretions, (World Health Organization (WHO) 2014a) and this is the basis of the WHO and the CDC recommendations for facemasks to protect HCWs from EVD. When determining recommendations for the protection of HCWs, guidelines should not be based solely on one parameter, the presumed mode of transmission.

Better safe than sorry, yet the recommended precautions don't seem to be sufficient; only extreme precautions seem to be the singularly certain way to prevent transmission.

There appears to be a double standard in recommendations for laboratory scientists working with EV, who must adhere to the highest level of biocontainment (BSL4) when working with the virus. (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Aging Australia, 2007) Further, in contrast to HCWs, laboratory workers are exposed to the virus in a highly controlled, sterile environment in which there is less risk of transmission than in the highly unstable, contaminated and unpredictable clinical environment. The perceived inequity inherent in these inconsistent guidelines may also reduce the willingness of HCWs to work during an EVD outbreak.

As the MSF doctor said in the recent reddit AMA thread, there is no end in sight unless international efforts are immediately stepped up.

a reply to: windwaker

I agree they need people to.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

I am sorry, but you are wrong. The recommended precautions aren't working BECAUSE THEY AREN'T BEING FOLLOWED. Have you completely ignored the pictures of the treatment facilities?

a reply to: raymundoko

Where am I wrong?

And what's more, I'm going to ask you again for your medical qualifications and links to published papers.

Are you more qualified than the authors of this paper?

C. Raina MacIntyre1email, Abrar Ahmad Chughtai2, Holly Seale3, Guy A Richards4, Patricia M Davidson5
1Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and Head of School.
2Research assistant and PhD candidate.
3Senior lecturer
4Professor of Critical Care and Director, Critical Care Unit.
5Dean of Nursing and Professor

Wherein they state:

Further, numerous HCWs have succumbed to EVD during this epidemic, including senior physicians experienced in treating EVD and presumably less likely to have suffered lapses in infection control (World Health Organization (WHO) 2014).

ibid document linked in prior post

“I never contacted his fluids.i checked his Vitals,helped him with his food.(he was too weak)…..i basically touched where his hands touched and dats d only contact.not directly wt his fluids.@a stage,he yanked off his infusion and we had blood everywhere on his bed…..but d ward maids took care of that and changed his linens with great precaution.everypatient is treated as high risk …..if it were airborne,by now wahala for dey.i still thank God.”

“Friends,upto our uniforms n all linens were burnt off.we r on surveillance n off work till 11th. Our samples v long bn taken by WHO n so far we v been fine. For me,kudos to my hospital managt cos we work proffessionally wt every patient considered risk cos thats d training.had it been its a hospital where they manage ordinar gloves lik Govt hospital n some janjaweed private hosp..:lol….wahala for dey o.i must also thank Lagos Govt….infact! Even fed govt sef….all been supportive.im good n so r the others in d hosp…..”

link

Sacra was at the obstetrics ward seeing pregnant mothers — some of whom were turned away from other crowded facilities in Liberia. He did not treat Ebola patients.

Exactly how Sacra caught the virus remains unknown. The obstetrics ward is located at the main hospital, which is separate from the Ebola isolation unit. Johnson said Sacra was following all the precautions advised by CDC and Doctors Without Borders, including wearing protective gear.

U.S. Doctor Didn't Treat Ebola Patients Yet Still Caught The Virus

What else ya got?

Perhaps some of those who have survived ebola, and now have immunity, should be recruited and trained to work in the care facilities with the sick. At the rate things are going, they should have a substantial pool of survivors to work with.

a reply to: NoAngel2u

But they wouldn't be immune to it, at least from what I can tell, no matter if you've had it or not, you can keep getting it again and again and again...

a reply to: quirkygirl

Not quite:

Hey there Doc. Ok so in my microbiology class we have been studying Ebola on and off since the semester started. We came across this one article that talked about people who had survived Ebola and seemed to be doing well then it just comes back. What are your thoughts on the chance of a relapse with Ebola after surviving it?

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[–]ELasry[S] 88 points 1 day ago 

We don't know of anyone who has relapsed.

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[–]potatoisafruit 34 points 1 day ago 

I have two questions:

The literature has very little on whether plasma transfer has been effective in protecting patients, or whether surviving Ebola confers long-term immunity. What are your thoughts?

How can communications about this epidemic be more effective in generating support? What we're seeing IMO in the U.S. is ~90% of people ignoring the situation (just another overblown "crisis"/African issue) and ~10% of people in a full-out panic. What message can be used to create urgency without panic, and which is the best organization to get that message out? (It seems like the WHO has been unsuccessful and the CDC is hesitant to step up since it's not a U.S. issue...)

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[–]ELasry[S] 48 points 1 day ago 

It seems that surviving Ebola does confer immunity although we don't know for how long. However, we don't know of any patients who have been infected twice.

Transfer of plasma from convalescent patients is actually being tested.

Awareness is definitely a way of generating support. The WHO has been slow to react but they are now speeding up, and the CDC has been at the outbreak almost since the beginning and has deployed more people on the ground than it ever has, as well as contributed to the awareness. The outbreak has been declared an international humanitarian emergency by the WHO.

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