Prisoner with suspected case of Ebola escapes from hospital in Uganda

Originally posted by xXxinfidelxXx
unless it mutated in a significant fashion (the engineered kind),

Biopreparat

Like maybe "Ebolapox (hybrid of ebola with smallpox)"?

Combining the lethal nature of Ebola with the communicability of smallpox.

Don't you just love government for "looking out for us" by creating all of these chimera viral monsters?

By the way, we are lucky to know what was being developed in the USSR, however we still don't know much about what was being illegally developed here in the USA.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

A friend of mine just told me that it's awfully similar to a Tom Clancy Book. Rainbow Six

Poor man - if anything does go down the DHS will probably be knocking on his door again...

Excerpt from his arrest in 2004 -

The Department of Homeland Security announced today that they had arrested author Tom Clancy, due to his "clear knowledge of terrorist motivations and methods of operation." Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge stated that "Mr. Clancy is clearly not telling all he knows. He has written many books which bear a striking resemblance to the events of 9/11. For years, he has been able to hide behind the excuse of being an author of fiction. But thanks to our diligent actions, he will not able to hide behind this excuse any longer."

reply to post by jacktorrance


Wtf? he was seriously arrested? Never heard that.

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Ebola is passed through fluids, not air. So it is a little harder to pass than say the flu. It is not a very aggressive illness.

This statement is true and should get attention. The ebola virus although a particularly nasty bug is not a very strong communicator. Most cases are obtained from contact with the dead animals or handling human remains for a funeral and unsanatory conditions aid in its transmission. There is a type that is thought to be airborn but the studies are not complete. This virus remained hidden deep within the congo until the late 70's when the first cases were discovered. It is relativly new and there are a few different strains most of which developed in central africa, the Congo and the Ivory coast. It can and has mutated from the original strains first found in 76.
It is not going to create an "Outbreak" type scenerio as the virus spreads through close contact not casual contact. So it wont get us through say a sneeze but if you see someone bleeding run !

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

What if he died and his body ended up in a water supply?

Not really likely, but could the virus transmit that way?

~tenth

That's an interesting and scary thought. I dont know if the virus requires a constant temperture in order to live. I just read that it lived for over 61 days in a seman sample.

reply to post by claireaudient


It would be pretty impossible not to recognize the symptoms of hemmorphagic fever even in the most rural of hospital settings.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Yes and no. Yes it is pretty safe to assume that he wont be infecting anyone unless he does it knowingly. The issue starts when he is dead if he does not die in a hospital setting where his condition is known. If he dies in a boarding house or hotel the manager calls the proper authorities ( a funeral home for instance) and that person does not know the cause of death. There could be victim # 2 but again not exactly a pandemic situation.

reply to post by pauljs75


The ebola victims leavings would most likely include blood. I dont think I could over look blood no matter what the venue or how badly I had to pee. Sorry but we're not talking about a few droplets on a toilet seat.

Originally posted by blueorder
Humour me here, how does the "first" person catch it, ie the first person in an outbreak?

If I remember correctly and I guess I could just google it but I believe that outbreaks are initiated with the handling of an infected animal. Where the animals get it is another question. It is thought that the first cases were brought to the human population through the habit of eating bush meat .
Most recent outbreaks were started with the handling or improper handling of an infected animal.

reply to post by Tindalos2013


The "reserviour" in this case is the animals that carry the disease not an actual reserviour of water. The writer refers to the potential pool of victims or carriers. Although there is reference to the potential for this to also be carried by or assisted by plant viruses.

reply to post by intrptr


Yeah, but the 70 to 300 doesn't necessarily equal new infections. This happens every few years. Ebola is just not that good at spreading in modern society. I am not saying I would mess around with it or anything, it kills quick and it's a hot virus, but it isn't anywhere near as contagious as the flu and is doesn't generally get very far out of the jungle. The time it did turned out to be a strain that didn't harm humans (ebola reston) that was discovered in a Virginia monkey house.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Now.. that's frightening. I would like to hear what the mortality rate on ebolapox is. I wonder if it loses some of it's bite in exchange for being more contagious. I wonder if people that have had chickenpox would be immune.

reply to post by Juggernog


Pretty crazy, I know.

My technology teacher in HS was great. Very interested in conspiracy theories, weather modification, and the likes, and loved to talk to us about it. She informed me about his arrest and said he had been on their watch list for awhile before that for having what appeared to be inside knowledge.

I couldn't find the comment he made when I did a search earlier - actually I couldn't find much about the arrest in general - but apparently when questioned about where he got his intel about inside jobs and political conspiracies, he simply said "From the US Govt." or something along those lines.

ETA : Looking into it more now that I have more time - not sure if the blog I pulled the orig. post from is legit - probably not from the looks of it as the rest of their stories are completely bogus (along the lines of The Onion) - something I didn't notice earlier, but he apparently was brought in for questioning by the CIA or DHS. Can't find much about it, but like I said, I remember when my HS teacher told me it happened a few years ago.

The 312 people with suspected cases, as indicated by the CNN article, is actually 312 identified contacts of those who have been infected. Some of these people may be infected, but the way it's written up by CNN it makes it appear worse than it is.
WHO Aug 3rd update

This same report indicates the suspected cases in Kenya were found to not be positive for Ebola.

Concerning the life cycle of Ebola virus infection, the Nation Institutes of Health has this to say:

The typical natural history of the disease begins with an average incubation period of 1–2 weeks. Patients present most frequently with fever, asthenia, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, headache, arthralgia, myalgia, sore throat, dysphagia, and conjunctivitis. One week after the onset of symptoms a rash often appears followed by haemorrhagic complications, leading to death after an average of 10 days in 50–90% of infections...Ebola is unlikely be transmitted during the incubation period and transmissibility increases with duration of disease and direct contact with infected individuals during the late stages of illness

Understanding the dynamics of Ebola epidemics

A 2003 CDC paper discusses an analysis of the chain of transmission of a small subset of the 2000-2001 Ebola infection in Uganda. One of their conclusions was that contact with inanimate objects that were contaminated with the virus could cause disease transmission.

Transmission through contaminated fomites is apparently possible. In fact, the association found for having slept on the same mat or having shared meals with a sick person or with funeral participants remained after controlling for direct contact.

External link to fomite definition added by this poster.

In reviewing much of the literature about Ebola, one thing becomes evident: there are more questions than answers. Because outbreaks are rare, there are not many opportunities to study Ebola "in the wild." In the article that I linked to above, one of the criticisms was that the study relied on proxy reports provided by survivors of the epidemic. Of course the principals were dead, and the survivors may have withheld information in order to protect themselves or others from further harassment.

With respect to the original CNN report, it has been over 24 hours and no new information has been released. Given the lack of further information, we must assume that he has not been captured and the status of his test is still unknown.

In another thread discussing this epidemic, I indicated that there are other possible outcome to consider if an infected person were to show up at the Olympics. The fear associated with Ebola is more likely to be much greater problem than any potential pandemic. Of course to keep fear alive I added a little narrative positing a means by which a pandemic could start.

Dex

Ebola + BathSalts = zombies ?

awwww cooooool , now i can pretend i`ll go all Left 4 Dead on the zeds............. when in reality i`d be found dead in a puddle of pi$$.

reply to post by jacktorrance


The Tom Clancy arrest was satirical: NEWS BEFORE IT HAPPENS!

Yep, I fell for it and had to look it up.

Dex

reply to post by DexterRiley


Yeah, I caught it when I went back to read more of the article. I posted the update in my reply to Juggernog.

Although, from a very few other sources I was able to find out he was brought in for questioning by either the CIA or DHS.

After my teacher shared it with me in HS I didn't bother looking it up til now. I found the little excerpt earlier and posted it without checking out the site pretty thoroughly. Fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

But he was supposedly brought in for questioning and the claim that he got his info from the US Govt is apparently valid.

reply to post by blueorder

That is the million dollar question. In tracking a diseases origins a lot of factors have to be considered. In the case of Ebola a multitude of theories about its source or "reservoir" in the wild have been tested and all of them have been negative. Except for this. According to the author of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston, two confirmed initial cases have come from some place called Kittum cave. It lies part way up mount Elgon in Kenya at 8000 foot altitude. It is not a cave formed by hydrology but a dry cave formed over eons by elephants who gouged it out of the mountain to gorge on the minerals.

Two people who developed Ebola described in their timeline that they had visited that cave. The really strange part is that as a result of that information many agencies have descended on the area, securing samples of every living thing that grows in, around and visits that cave. Even the author travelled there and collected a ton of his own samples. Heres a pic of him suited up beforehand.


His description of that place in his book is awesome. Having struck out in finding the reservoir man comes away scratching his head wondering how something so deadly can hide so well from a determined professional search. Which begs the question: Why do these insidious lethal agents hide someplace so far removed from civilization? Even the author speculates in his book. I don't have the quote, sorry.

But the idea is something like...

Suppose that in the early stages of life being "sown" on this planet, certain "population control land mines" were placed in remote places? That as long as human populations on this planet remained below a certain level things remain equal, but if population ever grew so large that people began encroaching on the most remote areas these "land mines" so to speak would be waiting to break out into and delete some portion of the human species. Thus insuring the continuation of wildlife environment and thus the human species as a whole. Thats not how he describes it in the book but close enough.

Bug hides in cave for eons. Humans finds cave, bug kills off most of human kind. Life continues.

I have this idea in my head of a pixie or angel or whatever you call it holding a bag of dust confined to a cave 8000 feet up on a jungle mountain top. Waiting... for somebodies to enter the cave and "ding" they get the virus as a souvenir.

So far the human race has dodged several "Ebola bullets."

reply to post by DexterRiley

Thanks for the update. I can see that earlier reports of 300 cases were really just three hundred people that someone exposed had contact with. The chain of transmission is a hard thing to chase down. First you have to find the "escapee" and then question them about every place they went and all the people they talked too or had close contact with.

Also If potential cases are reported a sample or swab needs to be secured for culture to determine if they have Ebola. A lot of initial symptoms of Ebola are similar to other maladies like the flu or common cold. The culture takes some time to develop or incubate in a petri dish and then checked against "knowns".

Simple hospitals in remote locations don't always have the facilities to do this. I may be out of date on how they test for Ebola nowadays, but this can take days in an accredited lab with samples on hand (like the CDC). They have this freezer in their basement that contains every contagion known to man for just this reason. God, what a frozen cocktail.

Thanks for the update. I can see that earlier reports of 300 cases were really just three hundred people that someone exposed had contact with. The chain of transmission is a hard thing to chase down. First you have to find the "escapee" and then question them about every place they went and all the people they talked too or had close contact with.

And then the success of that is based on the level of cooperation and truthfulness of the interviewees. I imagine these folks have had to deal with some shady characters in the past (e.g. Idi Amin) and they may not be completely forthcoming. On the other hand, the WHO and CDC have developed procedures and practices to facilitate quickly defining the potential transmission chain.

Also If potential cases are reported a sample or swab needs to be secured for culture to determine if they have Ebola. A lot of initial symptoms of Ebola are similar to other maladies like the flu or common cold. The culture takes some time to develop or incubate in a petri dish and then checked against "knowns".

Simple hospitals in remote locations don't always have the facilities to do this. I may be out of date on how they test for Ebola nowadays, but this can take days in an accredited lab with samples on hand (like the CDC). They have this freezer in their basement that contains every contagion known to man for just this reason. God, what a frozen cocktail.

I don't have the link handy, but I recall that there are a series of tests that look for certain enzymes and DNA fragments in the sample. And there is a lab in the Ugandan capital maintained by WHO/CDC specifically for the purpose of monitoring and testing Ebola. But, as you say, I don't know how long it takes to get the results. On the other hand, I recall that the negative results from Kenya came in rather quickly.

God, what a frozen cocktail.

Yum. I'll have my shaken, not stirred.