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Aid group: Ebola outbreak in Guinea ‘unprecedented’

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posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 12:31 PM
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Aljazeera News

Health authorities in Guinea are facing an "unprecedented epidemic" of Ebola with a wide-ranging geographical spread that will make containing the disease difficult, international aid group Doctors Without Borders warned Monday.

The death toll in Guinea has now climbed to 78, the group said. The World Health Organization said another three people are believed to have died from the virus in Liberia and Sierra Leone, prompting fears of a regional epidemic.


From The World Health Org.
Both Sierra Leone and Liberia countries that border--- have reported suspected cases and deaths consistent with Ebola virus to WHO among people who had travelled to affected regions before symptom onset. Two cases from Liberia were tested positive.

Right now no one knows how Ebola got into Guinea? However--- bats that carry the virus are eaten as a local delicacy in the region.
edit on 1-4-2014 by HardCorps because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:01 PM
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reply to post by HardCorps
 


Ok first, eating bats?? Gross. Second, oh crap. With world travel in this day and age Ebola could be the endgame virus.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:08 PM
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reply to post by jjkenobi
 


One wonders how bad it would have to get before the CDC and WHO banned international travel, which would almost by definition be too late...

Isn't it only a matter of time until a sick but still ambulatory person gets on a plane and travels halfway around the world, exposing thousands of people on the plane itself, the terminals and then secondarily all the people those people come in contact with, etc?

Technology has so many drawbacks we ignore until they turn deadly.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:13 PM
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jjkenobi
reply to post by HardCorps
 


Ok first, eating bats?? Gross. Second, oh crap. With world travel in this day and age Ebola could be the endgame virus.


Let me point out too... Ebola comes from the Congo part of Africa--- and to date has never been reported this far north before.
Kind of tells us the Virus is spreading, possibly through bats.
But if it can reach as far north as Morocco... that's only a tiny step away from Spain and once there all of Europe would be at risk.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:49 PM
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jjkenobi
reply to post by HardCorps
 


Ok first, eating bats?? Gross. Second, oh crap. With world travel in this day and age Ebola could be the endgame virus.


Whats wrong with bats? chicken of the cave.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:50 PM
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reply to post by signalfire
 


I have this strange feeling that they actually want a major disease to spread worldwide. Common sense would be to limit the spreading of a disease to protect your citizens. Maybe there will be some really cheap promotional flights to these areas in the future.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:56 PM
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rickymouse
reply to post by signalfire
 


I have this strange feeling that they actually want a major disease to spread worldwide. Common sense would be to limit the spreading of a disease to protect your citizens. Maybe there will be some really cheap promotional flights to these areas in the future.


I agree, but only a virus that the wealthy and elite have a cure to. The rest of us peons will just suffer and die.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 01:57 PM
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The Ebola virus is one mean deadly disease. I wonder what would happen if a few infected people got on a plane to a major airport...

In general, prognosis is poor (average case-fatality rate of all EVD outbreaks to date = 68%).

en.wikipedia.org...



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 02:25 PM
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reply to post by signalfire
 


Ebola isn't as easy to spread as you might think. It doesn't do well outside the body. It spreads through sweat, blood, feces, and sexual fluids. You can get it by directly contacting those fluids from an infected person. The virus isn't very durable outside the body.

Most people who get it do so through very close contact or touching contaminated corpses.

Just sitting on the same plane with a person and breathing the same air isn't likely to spread it to very many people on that plane.

What makes this outbreak so bad is that it's in a new location that is more developed with more mobile people letting it spread a little easier than it has in the past.


edit on 1-4-2014 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 02:30 PM
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ketsuko
reply to post by signalfire
 


Ebola isn't as easy to spread as you might think. It doesn't do well outside the body. It spreads through sweat, blood, feces, and sexual fluids. You can get it by directly contacting those fluids from an infected person. The virus isn't very durable outside the body.

Most people who get it do so through very close contact or touching contaminated corpses.

Just sitting on the same plane with a person and breathing the same air isn't likely to spread it to very many people on that plane.

What makes this outbreak so bad is that it's in a new location that is more developed with more mobile people letting it spread a little easier than it has in the past.


edit on 1-4-2014 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)


Quoting for truth...

Now if some smart cookie could finger out how to reduce its fragility, now that "update" would truly be the vaccuum from the heavens.

'til then, Ebola & Marburg & the others tend to burn themselves out before things get out of hand.

Derek



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 03:08 PM
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jjkenobi

rickymouse
reply to post by signalfire
 


I have this strange feeling that they actually want a major disease to spread worldwide. Common sense would be to limit the spreading of a disease to protect your citizens. Maybe there will be some really cheap promotional flights to these areas in the future.


I agree, but only a virus that the wealthy and elite have a cure to. The rest of us peons will just suffer and die.


Actually no.....the regular people have no more than ten percent of the wealth in the world. Killing off most of the elite would be necessary also. I think most of the wealthy will be destroyed by this, believing in lies created by the ones in charge of this system.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 08:55 PM
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reply to post by ketsuko
 


Agreed that it's rather more hard to catch then certain other diseases, but would you willingly sit next to someone who you knew was a carrier on a 12 hour long flight?

The two good things about this disease is, it's usually in isolated villages with a limited population, and it kills so quickly that they don't have a chance to walk next door, much less get on a plane.

OTOH, if someone ever weaponizes it...



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 09:08 PM
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reply to post by signalfire
 


I have a book rambling around in my library entitled Ebola by Dr. William Close. It's a fictionalized account of the first documented Ebola outbreak. At one point, they do put one of the nuns on a plane after she gets ill in an attempt to get medical help for her and for the rest of them. It didn't work, of course, but she didn't spread the bug to anyone on the plane, either.

It's a nasty book. For one thing, this was back in the day when disinfecting the syringe meant simply throwing it in a jar of liquid disinfectant and sucking some up in the barrel before re-using it. Part of the reason the first outbreak spread so well was because they kept using the syringes over and over. The disinfectant didn't kill the virus.

You just cringe every time you read about them doing it.

edit on 1-4-2014 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 09:15 PM
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reply to post by signalfire
 


The thing is that you probably don't want to find out the hard way. As far as I am aware, there is no cure, vaccine, or antidote for hemorrhagic fever. From what I've read, it is probably the worst way to go. Dying from the inside out...

You would like to think so, but I hope nobody is sadistic enough to weaponize such a horrible disease.

As has been mentioned, we are lucky as a whole that this disease moves so fast and flames out so fast. Modern medicine isn't all that bad when it comes to containing the problem.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 09:16 PM
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reply to post by signalfire
 


I had a friend who traveled to a remote location in Africa on business. He picked up a bacteria or virus and become very ill. His company did everything they could to disguise his illness to get him out of the country - literally propping him up and walking him through airports and customs, keeping his fever down artificially and trying to look as normal as possible...once home he checked into a hospital immediately. All told, it took a month to recover and they were never really sure what he had.


So, yeah, international travel is a concern IMHO.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 09:24 PM
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reply to post by kosmicjack
 


I've read some things that tell you that a trip to Africa requires a pre dose of cipro or doxycycline and a steady supply of malaria pills on location. Also, just like Mexico, you cannot drink the water or have native ice in your drink. Why would you want to go there?



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 09:27 PM
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reply to post by ketsuko
 


"The Hot Zone" by Chichton is an excellent fictional account of an Ebola outbreak in the states. Scared me stupid when I was young.

There is a section describing the levels in which biological pathogens are secured. Ebola was kept at a lower security level due to the fact it is so fragile outside the body and it's mortality rate isn't equal to HIV (mid 1990's, so HIV mortality was 100%). Also, the disease doesn't "hide" itself; short incubation, person becomes visibly sick, death occurs quickly and it is spread through contact with body fluids.

I think another poster mentioned that if this virus becomes more robust and could spread through the air, we would have a problem. Another poster mentioned that the cdc and who would close borders. I agree this would come too late.



posted on Apr, 1 2014 @ 10:00 PM
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reply to post by Dookie Master
 


That book is one my Amazon list, but I don't have it yet.

I think that without changes overall, Ebola is a much more effective instrument of panic and terror than it is an instrument of mass death in its present state. Think about it - just the thought that it could get on a plane in Guinea Africa and fly off to a populated area in the modern world has people freaking out despite the reality that modern sanitation would really reduce the number of people that would get sick in such an outbreak. The sheer panic such an incident would cause would be far, far worse than the actual casualties.

Now, I agree - if that thing goes airborne without losing it's present lethality ... whole 'nother ballgame.



posted on Apr, 2 2014 @ 09:09 AM
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reply to post by ketsuko
 


I couldn't agree more, Machiavelli posed the question whether it was better for regent to a rule a populous through fear or love. I was cogent to this fact when 9/11 occured and our population was paralyzed by fear, although we became easily motivated for war...I digress.

I'm not sure what, other than travel restrictions, the "fear" of an outbreak could bring. Maybe economic sanctions, similar to the embargoes during avian and swine influenza. Then again, the idea this could be a first global pandemic since the Spanish influenza during the early 20th century(I think I read more people died of this than ww1), would push for strong-arm border control. It's almost an open question that has many possible solutions, but very few that are correct.

"The Hot Zone" was in the early stage of movie production before hollyweird trucked out the spun up version called outbreak? with Dustin Hoffman. The Hot Zone would have been infinitely better.



posted on Apr, 2 2014 @ 09:21 AM
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I dont get what the hysterics are all about, some people in the villages are immune to it and once the infrastructure is in place any infected can begin plasmapheresis. The problem is due to the often remote location of areas affected and poor socioeconomic conditions local authorities are ill equipped to deal with anything like this.




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