Ebola Epidemic Could Become Global Crisis

a reply to: soficrow
Hi soficrow,

first I'd like to thank you for the great work you've been doing in helping to keep members and readers up to date on the Ebola situation.

I was doing some digging around today and found something very worrying indeed. On this International SOS . com page they report the latest from Sierra Leone, and besides the updated figures they mention that a "prominent doctor" has just died.

I checked the Sierra Leone News site and found this: How Ebola Killed a popular Freetown female doctor, Dr. Olivette Buck.

Quick summary: this MD was working at Lumley Hospital. Back in mid-August she was exposed to an Ebola patient due to "a lack of protective clothing". On 1 Sept she went to work while showing some symptoms but only asked her staff to do a malaria test. (!!) She continued to go to work while sick. A week ago she was finally so sick that some nurses visited her at home over the weekend to care for her. On the Monday she went back to work but her condition continued to worsen.

She did not get an Ebola test until last Tuesday (Sept 9). The next day it came back positive and only then was she placed in an isolation unit. After more than a week of showing symptoms and working with patients and staff!

She died on Sunday. (Ie yesterday).

The staff she had contact with will be quarantined. There is NO mention of what they are going to do about the patients she was caring for while she was sick!

This is just appalling. It makes me wonder how many other medical professionals are also working while sick: the pressures on them right now are huge, and I suspect some amount of denial may be part of the issue as well.

More latest news. This link says 22Million at risk.

tribune.com.ng...

Some of the story:

Nigeria continues to scramble in search of ways to curtail the spread of the now-dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), following the death and infection of victims in Lagos and Rivers states, fresh indications have emerged that the disease could assume a more dangerous dimension, putting the entire world at greater risk.

In a report obtained by Sunday Tribune, Ebola, researchers also claimed, has the capacity to become airborne, just as it was noted that 15 African countries could be hit on a larger scale.

There were fears that the outbreak might put 22 million people at risk in Africa, with particular attention on West Africa, which the experts noted, “is likely to be home to more animals harbouring the virus than previously feared.”

So, this looks like its going to get way way worse.

In a map of the countries likely to be hit by EVD unless measures were taken to “understand better where people come into contact with Ebola-infected animals - for example through hunting or eating bush meat - and stopping them from contracting the deadly disease,” Nigeria is predicted to be second worst hit by the fresh outbreaks with 2.1 million of the population while the worst hit is predicted to be Democratic Republic of Congo with 11.7 million of the population.

Nigeria will see more deaths and Congo.


Some good news though. Paul Allen of Microsoft is giving another 6.6mil to help fight it.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is giving an additional $6.6 million toward the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, bringing his total to $20 million.

Allen is backing two initiatives to provide resources and support, with the latest funds supporting businesses and organizations working on logistical and transportation needs, Allen announced.

a reply to: JustMike

Good catch - the sad fact is, this kind of thing happens all the time with Ebola. More than other disease, it's well-recognized that most infections in an outbreak come from infected medical personnel. Until the experts appear and establish the protocols.

....Sick people do not make good decisions. Which means the protocols need to be in place, along with qualified decision-makers, support staff and the requisite manpower - as well as protective equipment and materials etc. - to take over when superintendents like Buck get sick. However, NONE of those things are in place in West Africa. That's why they're begging for help.

The situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Our best hope is that the virus does not mutate to become airborne. Which it very well could, given the growing number of hosts and the fact that every new host results in numerous new mutations. All it needs is one that sticks.

I'm just wondering like, if I were to go to the desert, mountains, Jungles of the Amazon or some Ancient place like Tikal or Michu Pichu, would it be safe? Could probably even go someplace like Northern Alaska or Tibet and just hide out.

i think it would because as we know, there would be much less amount of people in those places, therefore probably giving you a 99% chance of avoiding 'Ebola'. You can live off the Vegetation and drink fresh water when it rains, well maybe not so much in the desert but you know hat I mean.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

...if I were to go to the desert, mountains, Jungles of the Amazon or some Ancient place like Tikal or Michu Pichu, would it be safe?

Maybe you would be safe from Ebola but viruses and bacteria are part of our world - they're everywhere - and sometimes they cause diseases. Every area has its own species. But if you really want to "escape" exposure, get out of the US. It's riddled with disease-causing prions - in the soil, water, everywhere.

a reply to: soficrow

I'm not in the USA, I'm in the UK.

But yeah I guess there are other viruses about such as that Chikungunya in the US and South America.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

It's not just viruses that are the problem - bacteria, fungi and prions kill people too. Our world is chock full of all of them - they're all mutating, evolving and developing resistance - and our drugs don't work that well any more. Soon, our drugs won't work at all. In that light, Ebola really is not such a big deal. Just the disease du jour. Not sayin' we shouldn't pay attention, just that a bit of perspective is ....helpful.

I am quite curious about what is going on in the Ivory Coast, a country that shares a border with Liberia, but has apparently not had any Ebola cases, is the disease really stopping at the border? I would think that as things get worse in Liberia, at some point people would try to flee the country by any means they could.

As of September 16, the World Health Organization has reported 4,985 infections of Ebola across six countries, resulting in 2,496 deaths.

This map shows the path of the disease’s outbreak, as recorded by the World Health Organization beginning March 23, 2014. Data from last week shows the disease spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 62 cases and 35 deaths are reported.



time.com...

You gotta wonder if the totals we are being shown are true. I mean with all this panic going on about it you'd expect the totals to be higher. Send 3,000 Troops to contain it when only the above total cases are reported seems a bit vast. There must be more cases IMO.

Anyway, just thought I'd update this Thread with latest figures.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

Well taking into account the (imho low) estimates by MSF, WHO, CDC, et al., that the reported numbers are 25%-50% of actual cases, the numbers sum thusly:

9970 - 14955 infected
4992 - 7488 deaths

What's disturbing is that even these numbers could be quite low to the actuality on the ground.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

....Send 3,000 Troops to contain it when only the above total cases are reported seems a bit vast. There must be more cases IMO.

Yes, no doubt there are more cases. But the most scary thing is Ebola's rapid mutation. The longer H2H transmission occurs, the more mutations will accumulate. Maybe it will go airborne but most important, new mutations threaten the viability of new treatments and vaccines - all developed for specific strains. Point being, if more new strains emerge, treatments and vaccines in development 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.

a reply to: soficrow

I've decided I'm not going to panic until its Transmissible via air until then I'll hope that it can be contained and sorted before it ever reaches that level.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

And support concerted global intervention, right?

a reply to: soficrow

global Intervention? Yeah, sure I support that. IMO its the only way it can be muted. With many Country's willing to help out, I have Faith it will be dealt with but there will still be many more live's lost between now and then.

originally posted by: TruthxIsxInxThexMist
As of September 16, the World Health Organization has reported 4,985 infections of Ebola across six countries, resulting in 2,496 deaths.

For some reason, the WHO did not include any data for Liberia after September 9th in their September 16th update. Maybe they didn't receive later reports in time. But since Liberia is the hardest hit of any country right now, that means their latest update left out quite a few cases and deaths.

Including Liberia (but not Congo), there were 5,232 and 2,589 deaths officially reported by WHO or directly by the Ministries of Health of the affected countries through September 13th.

For those interested, I've updated the Ebola charts in the charts thread with the data published by WHO on September 16, 2014 and filled in the missing details where possible with Situation Reports from the governments of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone (the same places where WHO gets their numbers). So the charts have all the 'official' data from the presumed first case on December 2, 2013 through September 13, 2014. Here is a link to the start of the updated charts:

First post in the latest series of Ebola chart updates

As jaded points out, most people (including WHO, the CDC, etc.) believe the official numbers are seriously understated and that the real numbers may be at least 2 to 4 times higher.

a reply to: ikonoklast

Thanks for the info. I see those projections of yours look pretty sharp. Pretty steady upto a point and then boom. August took a big hit, Sept is closing in already.

Meanwhile latest news:

Officials in Guinea say a team of health workers and journalists who were trying to raise awareness about Ebola may have been kidnapped.

The team of six went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore.

Meanwhile, President Francois Hollande says France is setting up a military hospital in Guinea as part of its contribution to tackle the disease.

More than 2,600 people have now died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

www.bbc.co.uk...

I think you'll need up date every day now as the cases are rising faster.

700 new cases of Ebola have just been reported in one week. If I remember correctly that is the largest single week increase since the outbreak began. With the number of new cases growing faster each week I think the signs are clear that containment is no longer an option. And with the number of mutations growing equally fast the jump to airborne would seem imminent. This really is looking bad...

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
700 new cases of Ebola have just been reported in one week. If I remember correctly that is the largest single week increase since the outbreak began. With the number of new cases growing faster each week I think the signs are clear that containment is no longer an option. And with the number of mutations growing equally fast the jump to airborne would seem imminent. This really is looking bad...

imminent jump? ugh, getting so tired of reading the word "airborne". you realize it could take friggen decades for it to make this jump to airborne right? you may as well start worrying about the sun blowing up at this rate.

a reply to: clenz

The simple truth of the matter is the virus is airborne now. It always was. Just not in a form strong enough to infect anyone who inhales it. But, that could happen two minutes from now. The more it mutates the longer it learns to live outside the host. If you cant stop the mutation, you cant stop it from becoming airborne while virulent enough to infect people. Decades is out of the realm of possibility. Wishful thinking, but not going to happen that way.

a reply to: clenz

It could take years, yes. But with every person infected comes another chance to mutate into something else. Now with WHO's (potentially low) numbers, that's 5000ish chances it's had already, and that number will only grow.