Ebola Mutating: Sustained H2H Transmission

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: new_here

...What are your thoughts on the circumstances of their death, sofi? (Sorry if it's earlier in the thread... I haven't caught up!)

I think it's absolutely inconceivable that researchers and scientists trained to work with Ebola would not take appropriate cautions - and one of the victims was Dr. Khan, Sierra Leone's vaunted "Ebola doctor." ...Notably, ALL of the five victims worked in the research facility set up and funded by the US Military's bio-war/bio-defense arm and the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC) at the Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. The best (and most generous) suspicion I can come up with is that they buggered something up and accidentally created -and disseminated- a new Ebola strain. Which means they were testing a live vaccine.

Sophi, your thoughts here are well within the realm of reason. Can't find the link I'm looking for (and must leave the house for now) about the FDA shutting down the study of Zaire Ebola at Kenema Bioweapons Lab over "safety concerns." This coincides with the current outbreak. Now I wonder if their decision to halt the study is related to these deaths and the scenario you pose. (That it got out in the lab.) If this is the case, it is Top Secret and we may never hear the truth unless someone squeals.

Good day, for now... Be back later.

A couple of things have been on my mind the past few days from all of the news articles I've been reading about the outbreak. But in particular was one I read on NPR, about a man with his young son watching his wife's body being very unceremoniously thrown into the back of a truck with the bodies of other Ebola victims. She was a nurse and had used her bare hands to help an Ebola patient up from a chair. That's how she caught it. He didn't vomit on her, but perhaps he had sweat transmit onto her. I find it very frightening that touching someone for a few short seconds could transmit such a deadly virus. I understand that is how germs usually get passed along, but we don't normally die from it.

Another is exactly the scenarios described on previous pages about someone not being aware they have Ebola and touching things, then I come along and touch it too......it made me think of a couple months ago in my local grocery store and a man not far from me in the same aisle sneezed right onto the products on the shelf in front him....Gross! But at the time I thought how someone else would later come along and pick those products up. I always wash my hands when I get home from the store now.

a reply to: CatLady3912

Yes. I think that is how it is transmitted.

a reply to: new_here

I was just having dinner with some friends out of town. We got onto the Ebola topic and I brought up the 5 researches who got infected, supposedly even with (was it level 4?) precautions. One of my friends actually made a valid postulate on how this could happen. He said, "What if? They got infected before taking the precautions, like if they got infected before putting on the haze-mate suits or whatever. You can be infected for a month before even showing symptoms, what if they got infect before they even started working with the precautions.". Wasn't it said somewhere that they didn't know how bad this strain was at the start?

a reply to: halfmask

....Wasn't it said somewhere that they didn't know how bad this strain was at the start?

Official "experts" still deny this strain is different and say it's not any worse. In fact, the fatality rate is much lower than in previous ZEBOV outbreaks. ...But the five researchers who died were affiliated with the Ebola research facility in the Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone - for years - so they were trained and presumably very cautious. Dr. Khan certainly was.

On the surface at least, this Ebola is appears to be much more transmissible and seems to spread more easily than those in previous outbreaks. But this too is being denied. ....Hard to fix a problem when you deny it exists. Just sayin'.

Yep Soficrow, Denial, Stupidity, Oner Confidence and Hubris seem to be all too common and many times bring about the most serious of unwanted results. Somewhere within The Cause already dwells The Effect. Peace Arjunanda s a reply to: soficrow

a reply to: arjunanda

So true.

So sad.

a reply to: TonyS

...the scientific/medical community is coming to the conclusion that the virus, while it might be contained to west Africa, will become far more dangerous the longer it remains in the west African population and will mutate into something that can't be "contained".

There's an interesting under current going on in this thread. And I've read through most all of the posts.

Can you extrapolate please? ....What "undercurrent"?

Thanks, sofi

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"This is the end, my only friend the end"

a reply to: tustp

No it's not the end. Worse case scenario is that 2 billion to 3 billion people will die. Humans will still be here. We just might not be living the way we are now though.

I am being proactive and I am getting as healthy as possible in case this monster becomes airborne. I'm trying to build up my immune system in anticipation. It could be a year or two or three years before it comes, or never. But I'm going to do the best I can to stay alive because the future is awesome.

VIDEO: Ebola epidemic unprecedented and unmanageable: MSF

Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution

Mutating Ebola viruses not as scary as evolving ones

These mutations are simple mistakes in the genetic code, made when the virus is replicating within a host. With millions of replication events during thousands of infections, a huge number of mistakes happen. ….

….. the mutations that do get passed on are usually the very few that succeed at improving the rate of virus replication, or the rate of infection. Exactly how many of the mutations alter the effectiveness of the virus at replicating and being transmitted, and how they do so, remains to be established. And the study’s authors certainly expect this to be an important follow-up:

Since many of the mutations alter protein sequences and other biologically meaningful targets, they should be monitored for impact on diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies critical to outbreak response.

….The reason mutations have accumulated so rapidly during this epidemic is that the virus is in a new host - human beings. While other versions of the virus have jumped across to humans before, the Ebola viruses currently ravaging West Africa have spent all of their history in other animals. They are now adapting to human bodies, tissues and immune systems. The mutations that help the virus work most effectively in the human body and transmit most effectively from sufferer to uninfected victim are the ones we are going to be hearing a whole lot more of in the coming months.

So we have little to fear from mutating viruses. It is the rapidly evolving viruses, fixing the mutations that randomly occur like typos in a Tweet, that we should seriously fear.

Scientific American weighs in...

On the virus mutation spectrum, Ebola has a relatively slow mutation rate compared with influenza and HIV, but its mutations still develop faster than those of the smallpox virus. Still, the longer the pathogen goes unchecked means that it will continue to accumulate mutations, some of which could prove more problematic and make it potentially more lethal or easily transmitted among humans.

PS. A couple of months ago, when the first genetic analysis showed this was a new subclade or strain - the denials were heard round the world. "This is NOT a new strain," they shouted, "Ebola doesn't mutate like other viruses." Now it's undeniable - this IS a new strain, with almost 400 new mutations - so what are they saying? ....[drumroll].... "Well, yeah okay it's a new strain - but mutations are normal."

Go figure.

a reply to: soficrow

That is what I was saying. It is a huge problem now. Imagine how bad it would be if all you had to do to get infected was breath.

We cant control how fast the virus mutates or what direction it goes. We can only control how fast we respond to it. Unfortunately, we are not in a first-punch position. We are playing defense and counter-punching. Its hard to win a battle in which you never strike first. Your opponent always has the chance to score a knock-out before you counter. If the virus mutates into something that can survive long periods without a host, it has for all intents and purposes gone airborne. If it mutates into something more lethal but the rate of transmission remains constant we may actually have a better chance of winning against it. If it becomes more lethal and learns to survive without a host, well... Yahtzee anyone?

originally posted by: joho99
a reply to: ThePublicEnemyNo1

What would cause you to stop everything you are doing and remove yourself from society?
Just curious.

Not much given the current rate of infection from Ebola

originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1

originally posted by: joho99
a reply to: ThePublicEnemyNo1

What would cause you to stop everything you are doing and remove yourself from society?
Just curious.

Not much given the current rate of infection from Ebola

What us the current rate of infection?

Do you know? I do.



Upon further reflection, I sould ask for a bit more clarification; a verified case anywhere off the continent of Africa?

a reply to: Vroomfondel

....We cant control how fast the virus mutates or what direction it goes.

Actually, we can - if we stop the epidemic in West Africa, we limit the opportunities the virus has to mutate and evolve.

Check this out: Ebola: "Don't Help" Campaign Promotes Pandemic Depopulation Strategy.

Besides adding to the virulence, there is another complication mutations could introduce into the situation:

Gire, Sabeti, and their colleagues found that in the current outbreak the virus's genome is changing fairly quickly, including in regions that are key for the accuracy of the PCR-based diagnostic tests. It will be important to keep track of such changes, Gire says, so that tests can be updated if necessary. Vaccines and antibody-based treatments—such as the ZMapp drug that was used in a handful of patients—could also be affected by the kinds of changes the researchers identified. (Sabeti says ZMapp researchers contacted her about the new sequences her group had posted online.)

If changes in the virus make it harder to definitively identify as the cause of someone's illness, then new tests (and treatments) would have to be developed. I don't think I need to point out the dangers of misdiagnosis of this bug to those here.

What's more is that this particular outbreak seems to be composed of at least three diffrrent lineages of the virus:

The analysis reveals that the outbreak in Sierra Leone was sparked by at least two distinct viruses, introduced from Guinea at about the same time.

...

One Ebola virus lineage disappears from patient samples taken later in the outbreak, while a third lineage appears. That lineage—tied to a nurse who was traveling to reach a hospital but died along the way—seems to have originated when one of the lineages present at the funeral gained a new mutation.

And, as I have mentioned from in my earliest posts on this subject, the dangers of the virus trading some of it's abikity to kill it's host with ease of transmission is a valid concern as mentioned here:

Further studies of the differences between the various Ebola lineages might link such mutations to the virus's behavior—how lethal it is, and how easily it spreads, for example. “The paper shows the unrealized potential of what these methods could do,” says Roman Biek, who studies the evolution and ecology of infectious diseases at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom.

Genomes reveal start of Ebola outbreak

a reply to: soficrow

Saying that we can not control how fast the virus mutates or what direction it goes implies that there is forward motion of the virus. You cant have direction without moving. I think there is a difference between controlling the mutation and stopping it. Of course stopping it would be preferable, but that may not be an option any more. Assuming that is correct, then the fact that we cant control the mutation again becomes a legitimate concern.

IMO, this is a more substantial risk for massive loss of life than the Cuban missile crisis or the cold war ever were. I never got the feeling that nuclear war was going to happen on a massive scale. But this is happening. And it is not subject to human reasoning. It feels no remorse. No guilt. It simply procreates at the expense of its host. And all you have to do is touch it to be in the game. And someday, perhaps soon, all you have to do is breath and you are playing, whether you like it or not.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: Vroomfondel

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is spreading human to human right now, but the virus is a zoonosis. One of Ebola's main carriers is a fruit bat whose range is shown below, outlined by the dotted magenta line. Thought you might find it interesting.