Ebola Spreading: Infections Up 800% In Last Week: Officials Race To Track Down Possible Contacts

I posted about this last week when the outbreak began ( www.abovetopsecret.com... ) and it appears to be spreading. Definitely something to watch for in the weeks ahead as it breaks containment.

www.nytimes.com...

www.shtfplan.com...

The contagion continues to spread, and though it’s nowhere near the 11,000 people who were infected during the outbreak in 2014, the infection rate has spiked over 800% in just the last seven days, with at least nine new cases reported in the last 24 hours:

The number of suspected cases of Ebola has risen to 29 from nine in less than a week in an isolated part of Democratic Republic of Congo, where three people have died from the disease since April 22, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.


The risk from the outbreak is “high at the national level,” the W.H.O. said, because the disease was so severe and was spreading in a remote area in northeastern Congo with “suboptimal surveillance” and limited access to health care.

“Risk at the regional level is moderate due to the proximity of international borders and the recent influx of refugees from Central African Republic,” the organization said, but it nonetheless described the global risk as low because the area is so remote. (NY Times).

a reply to: infolurker

last time i got all flipped out for no reason...i went and bought masks and some other #...

nothing happened. i let the media convince me that even though it was deep africa i was going to get infected....

i really was freaked out
the news was running with the stories and how it was going to spread and blah blah...
nothing happened

The fear mongering in that article is irresponsible.

Why say 800% when 20 new cases is a much more accurate description.

Maybe it's just me.

a reply to: infolurker

Not to make this into a doom porn thread, but could this be a new, more deadly strain? Diseases hardly ever get milder in their evolution. The one of 2014 seemed to be fairly easily contained given the living conditions of the people it hit the hardest. Details of where it has hit will make a clearer picture of what we face with this new outbreak.

originally posted by: TinySickTears
a reply to: infolurker

last time i got all flipped out for no reason...i went and bought masks and some other #...

nothing happened. i let the media convince me that even though it was deep africa i was going to get infected....

i really was freaked out
the news was running with the stories and how it was going to spread and blah blah...
nothing happened

LOL, Now that is actually smart but for the wrong disease. At any time, another Spanish Flu could strike and having that equipment could save you and your family's lives.

Always be prepared.

a reply to: infolurker

Yikes that is troublesome.
You know, I remember reading how
this virus could still be present in
bodily fluids for two years or so.
Then I thought about all the migrants
from Africa to Europe. Just consider
what a few "Typhoid Mary" might entail.

Maybe its nothing. S&F

Just nature ridding itself of useless eaters....

Yup, the people researching a vaccine must be running out of their money now. They will increase bad information coming out of the area, but is it really happening, how would we really know. I bet they will be applying for more research money shortly, this is the pre-prep for funding.

Or, they are getting close to finding a vaccine and they want everyone to want to take the vaccine so they can make megabucks.

Interesting.



I'll be in Sierra Leone later this summer.

a reply to: DBCowboy

It's the Zaire strain but the outbreak is in the Congo . There has been some evidence to show how this ebola can be present in body cavities of a host without detection or symptoms for some time , refs Cafferky/bush meat . @tst last time it took international efforts to get it back under control / it's not nothing .

a reply to: rickymouse

300 000 shots of it are already available .. so get your conspiracy head round that one .

originally posted by: ZIPMATT
a reply to: rickymouse

300 000 shots of it are already available .. so get your conspiracy head round that one .

So the sales pitch is on. They will now be convincing people that the Ebola vaccine is necessary for everyone in the USA. They will import people who are sick to spread the disease here and make people think everyone can get it. Very few actually get it in Africa. Some people have natural immunity to this but that immunity can be a problem if your immune system is steered the wrong way. Genetically, I supposedly do not have the genes to be immune to this, but my wife has. But I get sick with viruses a lot less than she does, unless I am taking beta blockers. I will no longer take those except maybe one occasionally to control events if they happen.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Wasn't Sierra Leone one of the countries that had a big problem last time? If it was, there was companion thread talking about how those who have had a survived the disease tend to be immune to all strains. So that country should be better protected from that alone.

a reply to: rickymouse

You could argue that they tried that last time.

Thing is that Ebola is both extremely contagious and hard to spread in a modern Western society. If it ever got to where it overwhelmed our hospital and sanitation systems, we might have a problem, but a few individuals who are quickly identified with properly applied quarantines will keep it controlled.

The big problem I had last time were the people who kept feeling they were above the quarantine and then traveling all over instead of just hunkering down for the full period.

Honestly, Europe with it's huge migrant/refugee camps is in a more dangerous spot.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thing is that Ebola is both extremely contagious and hard to spread in a modern Western society. If it ever got to where it overwhelmed our hospital and sanitation systems, we might have a problem, but a few individuals who are quickly identified with properly applied quarantines will keep it controlled.

Hubris. The scary sort.

The big problem I had last time were the people who kept feeling they were above the quarantine and then traveling all over instead of just hunkering down for the full period.

Any containment policy that doesn't take into account human nature is ultimately going to fail. And in a ridiculously predictable sort of way.

a reply to: imwilliam

Not really. Ebola requires contact with infected body fluids in order to spread. So those most in danger of catching it are those who come into contact with those fluids (blood, vomit, excrement). In this country, it would be health care workers and anyone close enough to the sick person when they first begin to show severe symptoms (vomiting or diarrhea) which would most likely be immediate family members, possibly an airplane/train load of people if we are unlucky.

In Africa, sick people are nursed mostly exclusively by family members in unsanitary conditions and then they often hold a funeral where the mourners weep and wail and often drape themselves over the corpse of the deceased in many cultures exposing themselves to the fluids of the deceased in that way and then they disperse having been exposed and head home. This makes the infection very pernicious.

We don't tend to do that.

Notice last time that the few cases we had that spread internally were to health care workers tending the already sick. We were able to quarantine the family of the sick man and those who were close to the nurses, but one nurse traveled with fever which is the initial stage of contagious disease. The other did what she should.

The journalists who had returned from plague zones were the big problems. They simply could not keep themselves contained for 21 days. But that's not surprisingly in light of research showing they have poor executive functions is it?

a reply to: ketsuko

I'll be there to work on a hospital, of all places. Probably because of the last time.

a reply to: ketsuko

Not really. Ebola requires contact with infected body fluids in order to spread. So those most in danger of catching it are those who come into contact with those fluids (blood, vomit, excrement). In this country, it would be health care workers and anyone close enough to the sick person when they first begin to show severe symptoms (vomiting or diarrhea) which would most likely be immediate family members, possibly an airplane/train load of people if we are unlucky.

That conditions in Africa may increase the likely hood of transmission, does not equate to it being "hard to spread in Western Society".

I also couldn't help but notice that your statement could be interpreted to limit the body fluids through which the virus is spread to "blood, vomit, and excrement", I don't know if that was intentional or not, but the CDC says it can be spread through "body fluids" and includes "sweat" and several others.

Here's an article from the University of Minnesota that questions whether or not Ebola can be spread by air.

Experts suspect Ebola virus sometimes spread by air

Articles like the above make me skeptical about whether our understanding about the spread of the virus is "complete enough" and to consider whether or not it might be mutating in such a fashion as to make it more likely to be transmitted.

Mind you, I don't disagree with the notion that if our understanding of the virus is accurate and complete enough, and with a little bit of luck as to the discovery scenario, and if after discovery everyone does exactly what they're supposed to do, and if the virus cooperates and doesn't mutate, then everything should be fine.

I just see a lot of ways for this to unfold in a less than perfect way. And I'm "ok" with, actually would prefer, that we fore see the potential problems in advance of the proof. Cause once we have incontrovertible proof, it's too late.

a reply to: DBCowboy

I'll be there to work on a hospital, of all places. Probably because of the last time.

You'll be fine. But just in case.

Dibs on your parking spot. The US one that is.

a reply to: imwilliam

I'm not worried.

Alcohol kills everything, so I'll just stay drunk!