Ebola: Facts, Opinions, and Speculations.

Spanish jet returns with priest with Ebola virus

Spain's Defense Ministry says a Spanish missionary priest who has tested positive for the Ebola virus has landed in Spain on a flight from Liberia.

Link

FACT: The CDH and NIH pointed Samaritan's Purse to the experimental treatment.

Did the NIH play a role in getting the experimental therapy to the two U.S. patients in Liberia?
This experimental treatment was arranged privately by Samaritan's Purse, the private humanitarian organization, which employed one of the Americans who contracted the virus in Liberia. Samaritan's Purse contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who referred them to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH was able to provide the organization with the appropriate contacts at the private company developing this treatment. The NIH was not involved with procuring, transporting, approving, or administering the experimental treatments.

FACT: ZMAPP is not a cure or vaccine.

Is ZMapp a vaccine?
No. ZMapp is being developed as a therapeutic product for treatment of people infected with Ebola virus, but not to prevent infection in the same manner as a vaccine. The best way to prevent infection currently is with stringent infection control measures.

FACT: The NIH is starting clinical trials for an ebola vaccine.

There are currently no FDA approved vaccines for Ebola. The NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working on developing an Ebola vaccine. NIH recently announced they are expediting their work, and aiming to launch phase 1 clinical trials of an Ebola vaccine in the fall. NIH is also supporting the Crucell biopharmaceutical company in its development of an Ebola/Marburg vaccine as well as Profectus Biosciences in its development of an Ebola vaccine.

FACT: The US government is working with at least two other companies.

Is the U.S. government involved in the development of ZMapp?
Two other companies, Tekmira and Biocryst Pharmaceuticals, receive funding from the Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and have therapeutic candidates for Ebola in early development. The Department of Defense is working with a company called Newlink to develop an Ebola vaccine candidate. BioCryst, with NIH support, is working to develop an antiviral drug to treat Ebola virus that is expected to begin Phase 1 testing later this year.

Above from CDC.gov, Questions and Answers on experimental treatments and vaccines for Ebola

FACT: Tekmira is partnering with several other companiesm including the dreaded Monsanto.

Since inception, Tekmira has fostered collaborations and partnerships with leading companies in the RNAi field, including Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Merck & Co. Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, the United States Government's Transformational Medical Technologies (TMT) Program, Monsanto, and other undisclosed pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Monsanto Company
In 2014, Tekmira signed an Option Agreement with Monsanto, permitting Monsanto to obtain a license to use Tekmira's proprietary delivery technology. The companies' agreement and research collaboration will focus on the development of new innovative biological solutions for farmers, which have the potential to provide new options for sustainable pest, virus and weed control. The potential value of the transaction could reach up to $86.2 million following the successful completion of milestones.

Above from Tekmira's website, Collaborators and Partners

Disclaimer: These are all government and corporate facts that leave plenty of room for speculation.

And here's a bit about the tobacco, from Reuters yesterday: Tobacco -derived ‘plantibodies’ enter the fight against Ebola

For decades biotech companies have produced such antibodies by growing genetically engineered mouse cells in enormous metal bioreactors. But in the case of the new Ebola treatment ZMapp, developed by Mapp Pharmaceuticals, the antibodies were produced in tobacco plants at Kentucky Bioprocessing, a unit of tobacco giant Reynolds American.

The tobacco-plant-produced monoclonals have been dubbed “plantibodies.”

“Tobacco makes for a good vehicle to express the antibodies because it is inexpensive and it can produce a lot,” said Erica Ollmann Saphire, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute and a prominent researcher in viral hemorrhagic fever diseases like Ebola. “It is grown in a greenhouse and you can manufacture kilograms of the materials. It is much less expensive than cell culture.”

In the standard method of genetic engineering, DNA is slipped into bacteria, and the microbes produce a protein that can be used to combat a disease.

Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person can also play a role in the transmission of Ebola.
Persons who have died of Ebola must be handled using strong protective clothing and gloves, and be buried immediately.
People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. For this reason, infected patients receive close monitoring from medical professionals and receive laboratory tests to ensure the virus is no longer circulating in their systems before they return home.
When the medical professionals determine it is okay for the patient to return home, they are no longer infectious and cannot infect anyone else in their communities.

Men who have recovered from the illness can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery. For this reason, it is important for men to avoid sexual intercourse for at least 7 weeks after recovery or to wear condoms if having sexual intercourse during 7 weeks after recovery.

WHO

So is there any data how long corpses contain infectious virus? The way they seem to bury these victims, graves are only one meter deep. Document earlier posted, mentioned "bury the dead and bury them deep ". Nothing is straight forward, what we see is only the top of the iceberg and something tells me that not all safety measures are taken.. Slippery Slope.

a reply to: Druid42

Hi Druid and Everybody!

This is purely my own speculation about the situation.

I've been watching CNN the past few days, just to see what they're up to. For days they were non-stop about Israel, with plenty of horrible videos to show the fighting. Then...it's all about the doctor with ebola being transported to the U.S.
So now, suddenly...everyone watching is aware of the ebola situation. (and can SEE that it's been brought to America)

Problem-Reaction-Solution.
How long will it be before everyone is screaming for a vaccine? How quickly will it be made available? (I'm thinking, pretty darn quickly).
So, while WW3 is being orchestrated in the Middle East....North Americans are too busy clamouring for vaccines to save themselves. Maybe the vaccine will be enforced...? (what effect will it have on people?)

I could be wrong...I hope I am. Just have a feeling that this is all being manipulated, intentionally.
jacygirl

originally posted by: Snarl
Fact: a host is still contagious, for as long as two months after the virus has run its course, providing s/he survived the infection.

I'm sorry but that doesn't sound like a fact and I have not seen any information that states that in any of the dozen or so sites I've looked at that are supplying information on Ebola. Granted there are not a lot of sites dedicated to Ebola. I disregard blogs and even some news outlets and have concentrated my research efforts on health agencies and medical study sites. I hate having this phrase thrown at me so I'm a bit reluctant to say it myself so instead of shouting "GOT A SOURCE FOR THAT?" I'm going to ask you to just point me in the right direction. Thanks.

a reply to: Druid42

My "opinion"?

The way that our governments handle things, we have yet to see the worse of it. Ineptness appears to be the only thing they excel at.

My "speculation"?

We all aren't going to die, but according to some great data extrapolation by soficrow, it's going to get much worse.

I read about four days after death. I've looked at so much in the past few days I couldn't say where. Could have been wiki or the Canadian site.
S reply to: dollukka

a reply to: AutumnWitch657

I'm sorry but that doesn't sound like a fact and I have not seen any information that states that in any of the dozen or so sites I've looked at that are supplying information on Ebola.

It's true.

It has been documented previously - although I don't remember where I read it - that if a person has Ebola, and is able to defeat the disease, there is still a presence of the virus inside the host, even if it's not attacking it.

I believe it was first noticed in sperm screenings. People who were able to survive Ebola still had the virus in their sperm and could actually still be contagious months after stopping the disease.

That reality is one of the reasons why the search for an Ebola vaccine never stopped even though the outbreaks stopped and resurfaced a number of times. It was a general belief that people could still be carrying Ebola around although it wasn't active, or the hosts them-selves had become immune to it, which would mean a provable point of outbreak even though there wasn't effectively a "patient 0".

If and when a vaccine is finally developed its best candidates for administrations would be in those countries where Ebola originates. All past outbreaks have started with contact with an infected animal. In west Africa they still eat bush meat a known source for this virus. If they developed a vaccine west African nations would benefit from it. There would not really be a point in vaccinating any place else. We don't come in contact with animals infected with Ebola and we don't eat bush meat.
reply to: jacygirl

Now I did see that men could still transmit this via seman. Those men in Africa do not want to use condoms. It's why aids is so prevalent there. They sure are not going to wait seven weeks without having sex. Seven weeks is the time frame for sexual transmission. The west African health community really needs to stress barrier protection to prevent the spread.
n reply to: VashKonnor

I read seven weeks not months. a reply to: VashKonnor

Fact: Ebola is spread through bodily fluids
Fact: Ebola is not a respiratory disease in humans
Fact: Ebola is not airborne
Fact: The current outbreak is the Zaire strain of Ebola
Fact: Mortality rate for this outbreak is around 55%
Fact: This outbreak is larger due to it being spread early to three different locations, so there are really three different outbreaks going on

Opinion: People are over reacting to this situation and hyping it up. The media is doing it's best to scare people and they have succeeded. There is undue fear and panic running rampant in a lot of discussions/conversations about Ebola because people tend to speculate towards doom and gloom. People enjoy talking about doom and gloom, but it does little to help a real serious situation.

Speculation: These outbreaks will start to be contained now due to the attention they are getting. Even if other cases pop up in other countries, those will be handled much differently than the current situation in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. We won't see a worldwide pandemic and we aren't all going to die.

Um, it's not Ebola Zaire. It's similar but not the same according to an article from the New England journal of medicine that was linked in the other thread sometime yesterday. They believe it originated in guinea as a separate strain.

Most uninformed people aren't going to be able to understand the difference between being transmitted via bodily fluids/airborne. If someone just coming down with it sneezes in their hand/has a sweaty palm/scratch or cut etc and then touches a gas pump or anything as common as that, you can't tell me transmission could not occur. All it takes is for the next person to touch their eye, pick their nose, etc.

Yes, it's not "airborne" most likely by cdc definition. To the layperson, it would be. People still believe you can only catch it via vomit/feces from an infected. That's doing a great disservice.

What might have happened if Patrick Sawyer made it back to Minnesota and went to that birthday party? US hospitals do not have the capability (or any other country for that matter) to deal with a surge. All it takes is for a few individuals to get through to somewhere and transmit before realizing they have it and then what would happen? At some point, you can't handle and contain it if there's far too many people.

It was specifically said multiple times that Nancy had NO DIRECT CONTACT and followed all normal hygienic procedures. Do you think she's some idiot who didn't know how to act in an Ebola environment?

Please stop hanging your hat on the semantics of airborne. People who don't know basic biology, etc do not realize the difference between touching contaminated surfaces vs airborne and that will give a false sense of security.

Since you are so all-knowing, why did the emt's wear respirators if there's no chance of transmission that way? During the live broadcast of Nancy's arrival, it was specifically said multiple times that they would be wearing respirators just in case. Dr. Gupta even said it.

Please stop acting like you know everything there is to Ebola unless you can show credentials stating you are an Ebola research scientist. You are doing a great disservice to the people who want to have a simple discussion and exchange thoughts and ideas.

a reply to: kruphix

Thank you for the truth. I've been saying this for days now though not so eloquently as you have. I suspect you will get hot feet from flaming as I have. People just don't want to hear the truth.
I guess it's more fun to blow the whole thing out of proportion. Members have confessed to loving doom porn and they're having an orgy with this.



Edited to add this is my opinion.

Terrifying Ebola 'facts' for enhanced scaremongering

The Ebola virus can be up to 14,000 nanometres in length. That’s surprisingly large for a virus, but still too small to see with the naked eye. But if it were the size of a car, it could kill you if dropped on you from even a modest height!

Ebola is not the deadliest virus known to mankind in terms of number of overall deaths caused, but if it ends up causing more deaths than the deadliest virus known to mankind, then Ebola would be the deadliest virus known to mankind!

Some have reported that the Ebola outbreak could be much worse than is believed due to the full number of cases not being reported. However, if you’re basing conclusions on information we don’t have, there’s no limit to how many people might have Ebola. You, the one reading this, could have it right now! We don’t have any information to suggest otherwise, so who’s to know?

Vox recently reported that if the supercontinent Pangaea were to reform today, the US would border the Ebola epidemic locations, which would obviously make it easier for the virus to spread. While this may be true, we can take comfort from the fact that, if all the continents on Earth were to suddenly rearrange themselves, the resultant geological, environmental and societal devastation would achieve apocalyptic levels several times over, so a localised (if deadly) virus would be way down on the list of concerns for whatever is left of the human race at this point.

Ebola is believed to be carried by fruit bats, and the wastes or meat from such bats is believed to have caused the current outbreak. Bats are common throughout the world, and some are believed to be vampires in disguise, and vampires can sneak into your bedroom and drink your blood as you sleep. If the vampire that bites you transforms into an Ebola-carrying bat, then this would be a sure-fire way of contracting Ebola. You can’t be too careful, after all.

f you laid out all the recorded victims of Ebola end-to-end, the end result would be so horrific as to defy description, and you’d probably be arrested and/or placed in a high-security psychiatric facility for having done such a grotesque thing.

Some have claimed that homeopathy can be used to treat Ebola, but there is no scientific evidence to support such a claim. This still applies if you replace “Ebola” with TB or Aids or influenza or bronchitis or Sars or bird flu or swine flu or rhinovirus or Legionnaires’ disease or Parkinson’s or Huntington’s or gout or athletes foot or gum disease or gallstones or ME or cerebral palsy or kidney stones or heatstroke or arrhythmia or hypotension or hypertension or basically anything that is inconsiderate enough to be an actual illness with a biological mechanism.

Well that certainly puts things in perspective. a reply to: crazyewok

It's Ebola Zaire. It's been identified by several health agencies. a reply to: Zebra501

a reply to: AutumnWitch657

The current outbreak is caused by a variant of Zaire Ebolavirus with 97% sequence identity to strains isolated from the DRC and Gabon, suggesting a parallel evolution of this virus in the affected area as opposed to introduction from these endemic areas.[4]

3% difference is significant on a genetic level, this is a new strain we are dealing with.

Ebola virus disease in West Africa – an unprecedented outbreak

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657
It's Ebola Zaire. It's been identified by several health agencies. a reply to: Zebra501

Please read this short article.

www.nejm.org...=article

Here is one quote from said article:

Phylogenetic analysis of the full-length sequences established a separate clade for the Guinean EBOV strain in sister relationship with other known EBOV strains. This suggests that the EBOV strain from Guinea has evolved in parallel with the strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon from a recent ancestor and has not been introduced from the latter countries into Guinea.