Ebola in the city of Goma - A transit hub

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the case could be a "game-changer" given the city's population of more than two million. But the WHO expressed confidence in plans to deal with the diagnosis.

Ebola in DR Congo: Case confirmed in Goma

The Ebola virus has reached the Congolese city of Goma, a major transit hub that is home to more than 1 million people on the Rwandan border.

The case, which was confirmed Sunday by the country's Ministry of Health, has raised fears that the virus could make its way across the porous border into still-uninfected Rwanda -- something health experts have been working desperately to prevent.

The ministry announced Sunday that a sick pastor had arrived in the regional center by bus from the northeastern city of Butembo, where the virus first struck last September.

Ebola: DR Congo confirms first case in city of Goma on border with Rwanda

When I DDG the population I get a much lower number, around 100,000. Not sure if I am missing something here or it's fake news. Love how the 2 sources differ by a million.

The scary thing, if not fake news, is this is a transit hub. If someone with Ebola makes it to an airport before symptoms occur it could be a problem.

ETA:

Here it says Population of Goma 144,151 people

Here it says Total Population (2012) 1,000,000

Looks like it could be 1,000,000, but not buying 2,000,000

They wash your hands with a chlorine solution at checkpoints.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

I wonder if the size discrepancy is something like ours when we refer to a city. Sometimes it means the city itself, and sometimes it means the whole metropolitan area and all the surrounding suburbs. If it's not that....

Thanks for posting. I saw the news yesterday too; pretty concerning. May have been RSOE-EDIS.

Poor Sub-Saharan Africa. Terrible history, always behind in history and always some deadly virus or cataclysm or war occuring somewhere.

Currently, the great fear is the paranoia and superstition surrounding the "vaccinations" - and I don't blame 'em. I'm not one to criticise anti-vaxxers or anti-innocs, I'm a little sceptical too.

Ah well, what are we to do?

There was that crazy HIV/AIDs scare in Sub-Saharan Africa a while back too. Never goes well for the Dark Continent, eh?

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today declared the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

“It is time for the world to take notice and redouble our efforts. We need to work together in solidarity with the DRC to end this outbreak and build a better health system,” said Dr. Tedros.

WHO.int, news, 17 July 2019 - Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

The pastor has since died. They have tracked down 75 people who came into contact with him and vaxxed them. There is another group they are keeping an eye on ([url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/international-emergency-declared-over-ebola-outbreak-in-drc/]arstechnica.com[/url).

Would love for the anti-vax people to come upon a truly existential reality. I would bet you dollars to donuts their tune would change suddenly!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Would love for the anti-vax people to come upon a truly existential reality. I would bet you dollars to donuts their tune would change suddenly!

I don't consider myself anti-vax. I do question the number of vax kids get these days.

Anyway, I don't think you can compare the two really. I had a lot of the diseases they give the kids vaxes for these day.

WHO declares Ebola outbreak an international emergency

The Emergency Committee of experts who convened to assess the state of the outbreak today ultimately determined that the risk of Ebola’s spread “remains very high at national and regional levels but still low at a global level.”

Lets hope they can contain this. Reading that link it looks like it could get out of control and spread wide.

Thanks for posting the link.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Er, I am ridiculing the notion that the idea of not vaxxing is a bad idea!

A “face the firing squad” is what Camus wrote about in The Plague. It is about the facing of death when the Black Plague runs through a city.

A painful death or swallowing your pride... in a real life and death situation that is not a mental exercise or a belief.

Live or die. Vax or not.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I am ridiculing the notion that the idea of not vaxxing is a bad idea!

I knew that. I was just stating my position before I started typing stuff that could cause some to think that I am anti vaxxing. I guess I am for limited vaxxing.

A “face the firing squad” is what Camus wrote about in The Plague. It is about the facing of death when the Black Plague runs through a city.

How many people have wrote something like that about the facing of death when the Chicken Pox runs through a city.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: LookingAtMars

Live or die. Vax or not.

Are we talking about ebola vax or all vaccines? If just ebola, sure, and never mind about the following thoughts.

If all vaccines, those statements pose a false dichotomy in so many ways. Do all prevent death? Do some cause death? What about the in-between grey area (life vs. death) of being permanently damaged, like those who received over $4 billion in damages from the vaccine court?

It's not a question of all vaccines or none. It's not a question of absolute life vs. death in many cases. Some vaccines absolutely should be taken. Some are debatable. No one should receive all of them because some are more dependent on lifestyle, age, medical history, and locale.

Arguments that aren't nuanced and consider all the variables... well, I can only wonder how many people they've alienated. I think we can see that in the fact that vaccine skepticism rises with education level and income. Until the vaccine industry and proponents become more nuanced in their arguments--and more honest about the pitfalls and shortcomings--they can expect only more skepticism.

Frankly, I think the medical industry might be paying for their chronic lack of honesty in Africa. Look at the attitudes there towards providers. Could it get worse? There are reasons why these people react badly to vaccination efforts, and I'm inclined to think there might be more involved than just the culture. Let's just say it makes me wonder.

Looks like the MSM is picking up on what this could mean. The DailyStar went with the number of one million in the city.

World at risk of Ebola 'plane plague' spreading on flights: 'Everyone's at risk'

Olivia Ajira Kwinja, World Vision’s Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs Manager in the DRC, told Daily Star Online the disease needed to be tackled at a local level to stop it.

But she also gave a terrifying warning about how far the disease could spread.

She told us: "We are looking to stop this disease because we know what it can produce.

"But there is always the chance of someone getting on a plane."

Mortality rates for people contracting Ebola are 50%, making it one of the deadliest diseases in the world.

The current outbreak has spread countries in Africa, but if an infected person were to get on a plane, it could even spread continents.

There is a team at the Goma airport trying to prevent anyone with Ebola from getting on a plane. Let's hope they are 100% successful.

a reply to: drussell41

Good post, that is pretty much what I think about the subject.

Was it ever proven one way or the other that AIDS started in Africa from vaccines?

a reply to: LookingAtMars

I thought it (HIV) was from bushmeat originally, and then spread by people (read, "nuns") reusing needles while giving vaccines.

I'm sure that has done nothing to help any and all vax efforts on that continent, if they have any group memory at all. (The polio vaccine debacle there comes to mind also.)

Regarding proof, we'd have to talk to the epidemiologists, but I trust they did their work correctly. More or less.

With such a high mortality rate, I think "the international community" must nip it in the bud before it spreads across the entire planet and kills hundreds of millions of other human beings.

A potential death toll of 400,000,000 humans would be massively damaging to the entire planet and economy.

We must act NOW.