ISIS v/s Ebola

a reply to: kosmicjack

Here's a great little article about just that 'problem.'

Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak In Nigeria

…….Even though the neighbourhoods of the poor can be quarantined and locked down, nevertheless, the rich, the high and mighty must still interact with the poor. They have drivers, they have house helps, errand persons, even the home tutors for their kids who live in these neighbourhoods, and who can more easily come into contact with the infection and bring it into the homes of the rich.

Herein lies the trigger, the impetus, and the hidden motive for ruling elite uncharacteristic collaboration to do any and everything to contain the Ebola Virus Disease. ….

….I am once again forced to the conclusion that this current ruling class is inherently inept and incompetent to govern us, the only thing it is adept at doing is looting the treasury, and maneuvering around the corridors and bedrooms of power.

The lesson once again is that we have a duty to take destiny back into our own hands, to take back Nigeria from the death grip of these vagabonds in power.

a reply to: marg6043

I am not quite ready to make that prediction. Hopefully, it still can be stopped. This might go a long way, if it's not too late:

Obama to Send 3,000 troops to Tackle Ebola.

a reply to: soficrow

Since the Department of Defense is military defense, I'm not sure what exactly the DOD could do about Ebola. It's not their forte.

Ebola is a concern for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and the World Health Organization. Not the department of defense. There simply is no correlation nor anything the DOD can do unless you think someone can bomb ebola.

Now sure, the DOD can possibly be an aid to the CDC when their paths could possibly cross concerning ebola, but a disease is simply not within the DOD's realm of expertise. All they can possibly do is alert the CDC when someone comes into the country from an afflicted area, or help to prevent these people from coming into our country.

I cannot imagine anything else the military could possibly aid with concerning a disease.

a reply to: soficrow

Now that is just plain stupid. Maybe he is trying for the dumb, dumber and dumbest award...Our nations military is to defend our country militarily. Not build centers.

Hire private contractors for god's sake. Not a soldier.

originally posted by: OpinionatedB
a reply to: soficrow

....I cannot imagine anything else the military could possibly aid with concerning a disease.

USAMRIID and Fort Dettrick have a long, long history working with dangerous diseases, including Ebola. They know what they're doing. Also, the US Military brings superior coordination capabilities to the crisis, and if anyone can pull the whole effort into shape, it's the US Military who can do the job.

The stepped-up effort he will announce is to include 3,000 military forces and a joint forces command center in Monrovia, capital of Liberia, to coordinate efforts with the U.S. government and other international partners.

The plan will "ensure that the entire international response effort is more effective and helps to ... turn the tide in this crisis," a senior administration official told reporters on Monday, ahead of the president's trip.

"The significant expansion that the president will detail ... really represents ... areas where the U.S. military will bring unique capabilities that we believe will improve the effectiveness of the entire global response," he said.

a reply to: soficrow

I don't think that Ebola will be our next global pandemic, unless is pushed to become one, sending 3000 thousand of our military that are not CDC personal trainee is reckless and stupid, the reason is that some of the soldiers will become infected, unless the new vaccine will be tested on them as soldiers can not say not to any immunizations that will be pushed on them without repercussions, if no vaccine is given the infected will come back to our soil to keep infecting and creating the pandemic that obviously big pharma is praying for.

I wonder if the population in West Africa will be receptive to the U.S. troops, there ie a lot of suspicion of Western interests. Also, 3000 really enough given the sheer number infected/soon to be infected? Will we return these troops back home for treatment if they become infected? Is it possible they have been given a trial vaccine?

a reply to: kosmicjack

I believe by the news sources that Liberia was the one that asked specifically for the US to help, the reason for this is because (now I know this is new to me), Liberia have strong ties to the US as most of the population were liberated slaves from the US, so they are US citizens by choice, I believe.

Was kind of hoping this thread was about the concept of fighting isis... With Ebola.... Not really sure what I was hoping for there lol

a reply to: OpinionatedB
a reply to: marg6043
a reply to: kosmicjack

The urgency - and the need for global cooperation - is because Ebola is mutating rapidly. The longer H2H transmission occurs, the more mutations will accumulate. Maybe airborne transmission will develop, but most important, rapid mutation threatens the viability of new treatments and vaccines - all developed for specific strains. Point being, if new strains emerge, treatments and vaccines in development now will be obsolete before production even starts.

The only real solution is to try and stop the epidemic in West Africa. Yes, it may be too late. But there's still a chance so we have to try - because NOT trying just guarantees failure.

Ebola Virus 'Rapidly Mutating' as Research Finds Almost 400 Mutations

….The researchers fear the mutation rate will only be hampering the development of treatment including future vaccines.

Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak

....We observed a rapid accumulation of interhost and intrahost genetic variation, allowing us to characterize patterns of viral transmission over the initial weeks of the epidemic. This West African variant likely diverged from Middle African lineages ~2004, crossed from Guinea to Sierra Leone in May 2014, and has exhibited sustained human-to-human transmission subsequently, with no evidence of additional zoonotic sources. 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.

Soficrow, I'm not sure if you're an enthusiast or what, but I keep seeing your name pop up with Ebola.

It's important, to me, to note how small the Ebola outbreak is.
Isn't that absurd? Small? It's the largest one ever, isn't it?

Yes, it's absolutely tiny. Even if, as they say, hundreds of thousands, or even a couple of million people get it, it's absurd to think of this outbreak as the world-destroying thing it's being made out to be.

Granted, it's terrifying. The nature of the disease, the effects of getting it, it's all horrific. I for one would be devastated if anyone I knew got it, and for that reason, I support MSF's proposals for dealing with the outbreak.

That said, let's keep things in perspective.
People keep talking about it mutating. Becoming airborne.
I guarantee you this. If this outbreak is airborne, it was manipulated to be so. Intentionally. Is that possible? Maybe, I don't know. This is ATS, so I'm sure some people will say that it is. For myself, I don't think anyone would see profit in intentionally creating and distributing this virus as an airborne variant, but I don't know for sure. Definitely a lot of healthcare workers have gotten it, and maybe that indicates that it's airborne. But I SERIOUSLY doubt it.

It's relevant to remember that NO VIRUS, not even ONE, has ever simply evolved to become airborne while we watched. It has NEVER HAPPENED in the history of humans monitoring viruses. Of course, that's not very long, and the fact that there is such a thing as an airborne virus tells us that it is ABSOLUTELY possible for it to happen. But think about the odds.

The odds of Ebola mutating to become airborne, are something like the odds of having a child with arms that are incredibly mutated to the point of being useless as arms, but by a tiny random chance, they function perfectly as wings. Or, a child born with a nose that's so twisted out of ordinary proportions, but happens to function as gills.

In order to exist airborne, the RNA of Ebola virus must be encapsulated in a protein shell called a capsid. This is what allows it to fly around in the air absent body fluids and still infect new hosts. This is how things like the flu virus work.

But think about this. Why hasn't the HIV virus ever mutated to become airborne? It could, as easily as Ebola. But it's talked about in such a casual way, because it's accepted that it is so massively unlikely to happen, that we don't even think of it as a serious possibility. I guarantee you that far, far, FAR more people in Africa alone are infected by HIV than Ebola. Put the worldwide numbers together, and why isn't there a panic about airborne HIV?

Conversely, why don't we worry about something like the flu virus evolving to become deadly, such as the Ebola virus? To me, if I were a virus, I'd evolve to become widespread first, and deadly later. If you're deadly first, it's a real pain to increase your contagiousness later, because when the host dies, loads of copies of the virus die shortly thereafter. A contagious but non-lethal disease constantly gets insane amounts of opportunity to mutate.

By the most conservative estimates, 15 MILLION americans, just AMERICANS each year come down with the flu. We already know it mutates around, that's why you need a new shot each year, right? Because of the various mutations of the virus? So if you have between 15 and 60 million infected people in just one country in just one year, the odds of this mutating to become deadly, seems far more dangerous than the odds of a virus which for the first time has managed to infect a 5-figure number of people evolving to become airborne.

Ebola is being made out to be a scary thing that it isn't. I'll give these countries a ton of credit for keeping it together, because a horrible thing is going around right now. It's scary and it's deadly. And there's a real risk of it spreading to other countries, in fact I'm almost amazed that it hasn't already. There may even be pocket outbreaks in western countries like the US and western Europe.

But there are real, undeniable facts at play here. In Africa, things are being DONE that SUPPORT the spread of this disease. Touching the dead. Caring for the sick without proper PPE. Things that might happen here, but not nearly on the scale that they happen in Africa.

Zaire strain of Ebola has been shown to possibly transmit airborne between pigs and monkeys, or pigs and pigs, whatever.
There is a reason for this.
In pigs and monkeys, the virus is attracted to the respiratory system, and large quantities of the virus are present in the lungs, and therefore the phlegm and spit of these animals, so when they cough, logs of wet virus are transmitted into the air, so if you're right there, and you breath in the actual matter of the infecteds' cough, you have now been exposed.

In humans, however, a much lower concentration is present in the lungs. The virus focuses on the liver and digestives, making it so our POOP, PEE, and BLOOD are very contagious, but our coughs are much less so.

None of this rules out the possiblity of airborne Ebola, or widespread Ebola outbreak in western countries. It is ABSOLUTELY, 100% possible and I don't deny that at all. But it is along the same lines as HIV. Do you fear a sudden, massive HIV outbreak? Why not? What is the difference between HIV and Ebola? Only how quickly it kills, that's really about all.

a reply to: marg6043

Or, it could be the other way around, "Ebola" a scaremongering epidemic

It is.

The current administration has consistently downplayed terrorism while hyping up global warming, and now 'ebola'.

Of course the US military has been studying that for decades as a part of their 'biological warfare' programs.

I am sure quite a few people will remember this film:

en.wikipedia.org...

Apparently those people on capitol shill think 'fighting disease', 'feeding people', building infrastructure is a function of the US military.

When it isn't.

Fighting disease is the perview of the CDC's, and the WHO's etc.

a reply to: neo96

You are right it isn't unless is some hidden agenda behind it, corruption have not boundaries, specially when is more involvement in the issue from secret testing of ebola as a biological weapon that many seems to even care to think about.

But occurs those are nothing but conspiracies.

originally posted by: wlasikiewicz
Infect ISIS with Ebola via a missile or a drone and let that wipe them all out.

No. ಠ_ಠ

The last thing we want is purposely increasing the numbers of Ebola cases even higher than they are now. It'll only make things worse.

a reply to: TheBlackTiger

Thanks for your thoughts. As I clarified above, the urgency - and the need for global cooperation - is because Ebola is mutating rapidly. The longer H2H transmission occurs, the more mutations will accumulate. Maybe airborne transmission will develop, but most important, rapid mutation threatens the viability of new treatments and vaccines - all developed for specific strains. Point being, if new strains emerge, treatments and vaccines in development now will be obsolete before production even starts.

...You apparently missed the news that the Ebola epidemic's growth went exponential in June - it's doubling every 21 days (3 weeks) now - and the current case count is 5000 with 2500 deaths. Here's how it plays from now if nothing changes:

www.geert.io...

Not so small in this light, is it?

The only real solution is to try and stop the epidemic in West Africa. It may be too late. But there's still a chance so we have to try - because NOT trying just guarantees failure.




PS. The graph above is quite conservative, and is based on the old rate of doubling every 34.8 days. At the current rate, we would reach 1,000,000 infected by February/March of 2015.

a reply to: soficrow

I definitely agree that mutation of the virus impinges on the ability of treatments to be effective. That said, the "success" of this virus limits its, shall we say, "desire" to mutate very far. It is far more likely that the treatments you describe will be the catalyst for rapid and major mutation, as it will be only the most oddly mutated strains that survive the treatment. Much like Round-Up has produced round-up resistant weeds that never existed before round-up itself was present.

As to your second point, the virus is definitely and undeniably being passed along at an astounding pace, relative to what we consider baseline for Ebola itself. Is that because of mutation, new human habits, nefarious plots, or something else? It's very difficult to say. In my mind, it is human habits and transportation that is fueling the unexpected scope of this outbreak. Nonetheless, it's next to absurd to make a graph that states when everyone will be infected. If there is a theory which suggests that the rate of spread occurring in western Africa would hold true for the entire planet, I'd be interested in reading it. For myself, I cannot envision such a circumstance, as I went into a bit in my previous post.

All that aside, I want to illustrate that the outbreak is still relatively TINY.

There are 5,000 reported cases. I believe, I'm sure you would also agree, that this is an absurdly conservative number. So, I will multiply it by 10. We will say that there are 50,000 Ebola cases as of now.

This represents 1% of the population of Liberia alone. Not 1% of Africa, not 1% of the world, but just 1 in 100 people in the country that is worst affected. And that's multiplying the reported cases by 10, and pretending that they're all in 1 country. By comparison, the common flu affects between 5 and 20% of our own US population, every year.

Africa is estimated to have between 25 and 35 million people infected with HIV. How long would Ebola have to run rampant before it reached those numbers? And why is Ebola so much more important? How many HIV infected Africans will survive the virus?

What I hope for everyone to understand is that it is the SYMPTOMS of Ebola that are scaring us. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of the Ebola outbreak, or suggest that nothing should be done to stop it. As I said before, I believe MSF should be given the resources and manpower they have called for, as I trust their judgement to adequately and appropriately address the situation. But maybe this could be a great time for people to realize that there are much worse outbreaks of much worse viruses, just not ones that necessarily strike you down quite as fast.

Here's an example. The WHO estimates that in 2012, there were somewhere from 135 million to 287 million cases of malaria. How many died from that? It's estimated that over 600,000 Africans died from malaria in 2012. Six hundred thousand. How many will die from Ebola this year? More than that? Maybe. And next year? And the year after that?

Here's another. In 2011, it's estimated that 1.7 million people died of HIV. 1,700,000, in one year alone. Doesn't this deserve at least as much attention as Ebola?

It is the symptoms of Ebola that are frightening us. We must keep perspective.

"Remember, remember the 5th of November." Anybody remember that line? It was from the movie "V is for Vendetta." The movie came out in 2005 and had Natalie Portman in it. Anyway, the movie was about the government imposing fear amongst the people to keep them in line. They did so by spreading images via the news of local upheaval (Ferguson, Missouri, the most recent); upheavals in other countries (pick one! England & Egypt a few years ago), potential take overs (Ukraine), wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, possibly Syria), terrorists (ISIS, the latest) and then there was "St Mary's Virus" (Ebola). The parallels from a movie that was made 9 years ago to now are a little frightening.

a reply to: TheBlackTiger

It is the symptoms of Ebola that are frightening us. We must keep perspective.

Great post. I agree overall. ...My ATS "shtick" is to focus on the "contaminated & changing environments=disease mutation & adaptation=human disease & impacts" overview - and to flag cutting-edge paradigm-shifting research, especially epigenetics and mechanisms like prions - and particularly, the long-running chronic disease (NCD) pandemic. It's a head-banger thing. lol

Ebola outbreaks are definitely linked to deforestation - other factors likely contributed to this epidemic as well.

As far as this epidemic being "tiny" - check out the study published in Eurosurveillance (commissioned by the US government, and the graphs posted here by ikonoklast (they're good). ....Remember, the whole point of these projections is to show what will happen if we do not act now.

EARLY TRANSMISSION DYNAMICS OF EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE (EVD), WEST AFRICA, MARCH TO AUGUST 2014

In the hypothetical worst-case scenario that the current situation with an estimated reproduction number R ranging from 1.4 to 1.7 continues for the remainder of the year, we would expect to observe a total of 77,181 to 277,124 additional cases within 2014.

ikonoklast

originally posted by: soficrow
Both initiatives call for a global response. The DoD is creaming and just got 30 countries committed to a global ISIS strategy. Meanwhile, the Ebola epidemic is still raging because there isn't enough manpower - and threatens to mutate, become airborne and go pandemic. Obama says Ebola is a “national security priority" - "If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa, but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates, it becomes more easily transmittable, and then it could be a serious danger to the United States.” But the DoD is not interested - says it's not their problem - they want to focus on counter terrorism. Is the DoD trying to sabotage the global fight against Ebola?

Concerns over enlisting DoD in Ebola response

….According to a senior military official, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said at a recent meeting: "The Department of Defense's number one priority is combating Ebola."

However, a Defense Department source told Fox News that alarms had been raised about the decision.

“We don’t need to be taking planners away from the CT [counterterrorism] mission, and that is what is going on,” the Defense Department source said.

….The efforts come amid dire warnings about the possibility that Ebola could spread, mutate or both.

Obama defended the decision to bring in the military in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” calling it a “national security priority.”

“If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa, but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates, it becomes more easily transmittable, and then it could be a serious danger to the United States,” he said.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, also wrote in The New York Times that a possibility experts are reluctant to acknowledge publicly is that “an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.” It is currently only transmitted by contact with bodily fluids.

Three real world reasons for the DoD position are

1) Specialization. The armed forces kill people and annihilate things, faster and harder than the other guys. If they do anything else, then they wont be as good at their mission.

2) In the competition for government money there must be a professional you-scatch-my-back-i'll-scratch-yours understanding. Every department has a unique function that cannot be done by any other.

3) Confusion and waste can be made into failure which always leads to bigger government.

If our government was really for the US population, then the Armed Services would have been stationed on our international borders since the Soviet Union broke up, back in the 1990's.

Its about time for a big happening again. The more catastrophic the better for TPTB.

Never let a good crisis go to waste

a reply to: Semicollegiate

True, in general. But the real danger of "specialization" is that you can't see the forest for the trees.

...There be a forest here that you're missing.