Ebola alert shuts Angolan border

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I thought this virus has been under control but it now resurfaces. Let's hope the african people dont suffer a mass infection or we could be next, the contamination rate is pretty low but on densily populated areas it could be catastrophic:

(wiki)
Ebolavirus first came to light in 1976 in outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Zaire and Sudan.[2] The strain of Ebola which broke out in Zaire has one of the highest case fatality rates of any human pathogenic virus, roughly 90%. [3] The strain which broke out later in Sudan has a case fatality rate of around 50%. [3] The virus is believed to be transmitted to humans via contact with an infected animal host. The virus is then transmitted to other people who come into contact with blood and bodily fluids of the infected person, and by human contact with contaminated medical equipment such as needles. Both of these infectious mechanisms will occur in clinical (nosocomial) and non-clinical situations. Due to the high fatality rate, the rapidity of demise, and the often remote areas where infections occur, the potential for widespread epidemic outbreaks is considered low.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Ever see the MAD TV skit where they wanted to use the term "Thats Ebola"! to signify if something was good? It was slated to replace the term "Thats the Bomb!". I think I'm gonna bring that back.

This is one virus that I am concerned about. It seems to go dormant for several years at a time but they don't really know how to stop it. They only do what they can to contain the outbreaks, without ever finding a cause or cure. If it gets loose, it could do a lot of damage.
To me this would be scarier than Bird Flu as far as being an "End of the World" plague.

Scary stuff!

And what may be even more scary is that the Zaire strain with a 90% fatality rate has surely been studied by someone somewhere as a weapon.

I don't think Ebola will ever be under control. The CDC believes it's zoonotic (An infection or infectious disease that may be transmitted from vertebrate animals to humans.) It's hardy enough to survive outside a host for a while. And they still haven't pinned down exactly where it comes from or how it's transmitted to humans.
In laboratory conditions, all 4 identified versions of Ebola can go airborne. THe blessing is it kills so fast the infection doesn't get much chance to spread.

Want to really creep yourself out? Bubonic Plague is still out there, infecting people every year!

reply to post by deepred

---

Russia chimera`d it on an RNA level with small pox.

20 years ago.

look up `biopreparat` and be scared - i can deal with nuclear blasts and the after effects - chemical agents require proper procedures - bio agents scare the # out of me.

Ebola killed a few nuns in africa a few years ago, and some villagers.
Hope they contain it !
Makes you wonder why some countries are spending millions on a few minutes worth of fireworks for new years eve......maybe it should be put towards research ,into diseases such as Ebola....or spent on the hospital system....!

Well,

As Busymind has already stated we cannot directly contain outbreaks of this one. It (depending on the strain) effectively contains itself. You can see from the outbreak map Here that its actually quite distributed geographically.

Ebola 'normally' kills people so quickly they don't survive long enough to have time to infect anyone else. (the Zaire strain in particular)

With regards to dormancy etc the real problem is not so much associated with outbreak frequency but with identifying the particular carrier. We don't know it goes dormant because we don't know where it comes from.

We do know that you can pick up the disease even from coming into contact with animals already killed by it, which is why a number of researchers are looking at the bushmeat question.

A brief breakdown of the numbers can be found here and you'll see that there are 1462 attributed deaths to the disease since 1976 which in retrospect is not generally considered to be high..
(Remember that the 1918 flu pandemic is estimated to have killed 50 million.)

Finally... just to let you all sleep better at night remember that the 4th identified Ebola strain was first discovered in Reston Virginia in 1989 and thus the name. Ebola-Reston.

Ebola is characterised as the next "global plague", we've managed to contain the virus in Africa - even though the fatality rate is 90%.

Mother Nature is cruel. History shows us every time humans have experienced a population spike, a Biblical plague has occurred. The rapid expansion of globalization may economically benefit us but the travel of humans across the world is dangerous.

A virus can get from Cape Town, London then New York in a few days.