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originally posted by: raymundoko
Only it's not and his friend is wrong. If that were true there would be planes of sick people. It's pretty easy to debunk the OP.
a reply to: violet
originally posted by: RockerDom
originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1
originally posted by: tinkortwim
I foresee it going airborne in the not so distant future.
As far as I'm concerned....we're already there.
Ebola is too heavy to be airborne. It's a physical impossibility. It is just as likely that Ebola will mutate to become completely harmless.
originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1
originally posted by: RockerDom
originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1
originally posted by: tinkortwim
I foresee it going airborne in the not so distant future.
As far as I'm concerned....we're already there.
Ebola is too heavy to be airborne. It's a physical impossibility. It is just as likely that Ebola will mutate to become completely harmless.
I agree with Ebola mutating, especially since that has already happened and is no secret. However, where's the stats or your proof that Ebola is too heavy to be airborne? Your sneeze can spread the common cold among many other viruses, please explain to us all why Ebola can't be spread the same way or be airborne.
If you made that comment just to start an argument...no thanks. If you have proof to back up what you have stated...then you deserve one of the highest awards available.
Either way, I would like to know how it's "impossible" for Ebola to be airborn because it's too heavy...with scientific proof please.
Not an airborne virus
Ebola virus disease is not an airborne infection. Airborne spread among humans implies inhalation of an infectious dose of virus from a suspended cloud of small dried droplets.
This mode of transmission has not been observed during extensive studies of the Ebola virus over several decades.
Common sense and observation tell us that spread of the virus via coughing or sneezing is rare, if it happens at all. Epidemiological data emerging from the outbreak are not consistent with the pattern of spread seen with airborne viruses, like those that cause measles and chickenpox, or the airborne bacterium that causes tuberculosis.
Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person.
This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.
WHO is not aware of any studies that actually document this mode of transmission. On the contrary, good quality studies from previous Ebola outbreaks show that all cases were infected by direct close contact with symptomatic patients.
No evidence that viral diseases change their mode of transmission
Moreover, scientists are unaware of any virus that has dramatically changed its mode of transmission. For example, the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which has caused sporadic human cases since 1997, is now endemic in chickens and ducks in large parts of Asia.
That virus has probably circulated through many billions of birds for at least two decades. Its mode of transmission remains basically unchanged.
Speculation that Ebola virus disease might mutate into a form that could easily spread among humans through the air is just that: speculation, unsubstantiated by any evidence.
www.theguardian.com...
The World Health Organization said 3,865 had died and over 7,000 had been infected. The UN has called it “likely the greatest peacetime challenge that the United Nations and its agencies have ever faced.”
kff.org...
Ebola death toll rises to 2,900 as world leaders gather at U.N.
“…Faced with a caseload that is doubling every three weeks,
originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1
a reply to: RockerDom
Please! Are you serious! Google....yeah okay.
Believe it if you want to....but the only one you're fooling here is yourself.
ETA
Take your uneducated argument elsewhere, I'm not interested. I asked for a scientific explanation. One you won't find an honest answer too.
Stick a fork in me...I'm done.
ETA
To add insult to injury, did you even know that a virus can cause disease? A virus doesn't begin as a disease. Go back to school already and stop relying on Google.
originally posted by: osirys
If you use the wayback machine you can see what Canada's Safety sheet used to say (March 2014)...
And what it says now...
??..........?
Airborne transmission has not been demonstrated between non-human primates
From Pigs to Monkeys, Ebola Goes Airborne
Nov 21, 2012 | Jane Huston | Research & Policy
When news broke that the Ebola virus had resurfaced in Uganda, investigators in Canada were making headlines of their own with research indicating the deadly virus may spread between species, through the air.
The team, comprised of researchers from the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, the University of Manitoba, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, observed transmission of Ebola from pigs to monkeys. They first inoculated a number of piglets with the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus. Ebola-Zaire is the deadliest strain, with mortality rates up to 90 percent. The piglets were then placed in a room with four cynomolgus macaques, a species of monkey commonly used in laboratories. The animals were separated by wire cages to prevent direct contact between the species.
Within a few days, the inoculated piglets showed clinical signs of infection indicative of Ebola infection. In pigs, Ebola generally causes respiratory illness and increased temperature. Nine days after infection, all piglets appeared to have recovered from the disease.
Within eight days of exposure, two of the four monkeys showed signs of Ebola infection. Four days later, the remaining two monkeys were sick too. It is possible that the first two monkeys infected the other two, but transmission between non-human primates has never before been observed in a lab setting.
While the study provided evidence that transmission of Ebola between species is possible, researchers still cannot say for certain how that transmission actually occurred. There are three likely candidates for the route of transmission: airborne, droplet, or fomites.
Airborne and droplet transmission both technically travel through the air to infect others; the difference lies in the size of the infective particles. Smaller droplets persist in the air longer and are able to travel farther- these droplets are truly “airborne.” Larger droplets can neither travel as far nor persist for very long. Fomites are inanimate objects that can transmit disease if they are contaminated with infectious agents. In this study, a monkey’s cage could have been contaminated when workers were cleaning a nearby pig cage. If the monkey touched the contaminated cage surface and then its mouth or eyes, it could have been infected.
Author Dr. Gary Kobinger suspects that the virus is transmitted through droplets, not fomites, because evidence of infection in the lungs of the monkeys indicated that the virus was inhaled.
source: healthmap.org...
originally posted by: eNaR
originally posted by: osirys
If you use the wayback machine you can see what Canada's Safety sheet used to say (March 2014)...
And what it says now...
??........????..........?
Airborne transmission has not been demonstrated between non-human primates
Then what to make of this article from November 21, 2012
From Pigs to Monkeys, Ebola Goes Airborne
Nov 21, 2012 | Jane Huston | Research & Policy
......................
So if they believed at that time that a monkey got the virus from a pig through airborne transmission, why couldn't a monkey get the virus from another monkey through airborne transmission; thereby questioning / making the statement ".. Airborne transmission has not been demonstrated between non-human primates .." in the safety sheet you've shown, totally deceptive?
Plus if it can be transmitted through the air between non-human primates why wouldn't that apply to humans which too are primates ( How Do We Know Humans are Primates? )?
There is a problem with using the pigs to primates study as proof that Ebola is airbourne.
Pigs are not people When a pig gets ebola it affects mostly their respiratory system, they sneeze and cough. A human being gets Ebola and it attacks the liver, they bleed and vomit and produce feces to try and get rid of it.
There is an interview with the author of the study which I have posted before (can't find it now) that has emphasised this. The conclusion of that study was also 'suspected' transmission between pigs/monkeys.
Another study was done with just primates and the infected monkeys did not infect the others.
" The new study, published July 25 in Scientific Reports by Kobinger and a different group of collaborators, found no evidence that sick macaques could give the virus to healthy monkeys through airborne particles.
The researchers placed two rhesus macaques infected with Zaire ebolavirus in cages near two uninfected cynomolgus macaques. The animals couldn’t touch, but no special shielding protected the uninfected monkeys. The infected monkeys died after six days. Meanwhile, the cynomolgus macaques remained free of Ebola for the entire 28 days of the experiment, well beyond the six to 16 days it takes for symptoms to appear after catching Ebola."
www.nature.com...
www.sciencenews.org...
That is a very good logical reason as to why it's unlikely that Ebola is being spread through the air, it doesn't seem to make primates or humans cough and sneeze very much. Yes a virus can mutate but it can take decades or hundreds or thousands of years.
Why is it everyone quotes the pigs to monkey paper but choose to ignore a primate to primate study which would be closer in how Ebola affects human beings?
edit on 10-10-2014 by DrHammondStoat because: (no reason given)
Airborne Variant Exists With the Ebola virus only being seen in Africa, it was beginning to be thought that it was a African problem, this would all change with a discovery in Reston, Virginia a town that is a few minutes outside of Washington D.C. In medical research, the use of monkeys is critical, and as a precaution, the government mandates a quarantine of all monkeys imported into this country. Monkeys are held in primate houses until they are cleared to be shipped to research facilities around the country. One such primate house is located in Reston, Virginia, called the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit. In 1989, this primate house had received a shipment of cynomolgus monkeys from the Philippines. The workers in the unit began to notice an abnormal amount of deaths in the monkeys. They realized they had a pathogen on their hands when entire rooms of monkeys began showing signs of illness. The veterinarians that worked at the facility thought they had a case of simian hemmoragic fever which is extremely lethal in primates, but doesn’t affect humans. They sent off a sample of the affected blood to USAMRIID at Fort Detrick. There, they discovered that it was the Ebola virus causing the monkeys to die.[8] The Army and CDC quickly put together an operation to exterminate the monkeys and sterilize the monkey house. It was discovered that this was a unique variant of the virus, this virus had an Asian origin. This bug could be transmitted through the air via tiny droplets similar to the way the flu virus is spread. But there was a silver lining to this case, there were human exposures to the virus and none showed signs of the disease. The virus that caused this scare is known as Reston ebolavirus. Epidemics with the Reston strain continued through 1992 and again in 1996. Subsequent analysis of the Reston’s genome shows nearly no variation from that of , which is very scary considering the air path of transmission in the Reston case.[8]
en.wikipedia.org...
This time, it came back positive for Ebola—the first test was a false negative [i.e. the test erroneously showed that the person did not have Ebola, when he did].
And the U.S. Department of Defense noted in August (on page 2): The possibility of a false negative result should especially be considered if the patient’s recent exposures or clinical presentation indicate that Ebola Zaire virus infection is likely, and diagnostic tests for other causes of hemorrhagic illness are negative.
www.bbc.com...
The outbreak has killed more than 3,860 people, mainly in West Africa.
More than 200 health workers are among the victims.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Aylward said the situation was worse than it was 12 days ago.
"The disease is entrenched in the capitals, 70% of the people affected are definitely dying from this disease, and it is accelerating in almost all of the settings," he said.
Speaking to the BBC on Friday, MSF President Joanna Liu called for urgent international action.
"We're not winning the battle," she said.
"To get ahead of the game we're going to need to deploy much more massively than what we have done so far."
At least one in 20 of those killed in the latest outbreak were medical workers, she said.