Ebola (NO political discussion please)

AntDog

AntDog

Joined
Apr 3, 2001
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I have no idea why, but I can't access the Ebola thread in the political section.

I want to keep politics COMPLETELY out of this. I live in Texas, and I am concerned to say the least.... Ebola is nothing to mess around with.

My whole purpose with this thread is to have a "knowledge base". Somewhere to post helpful tips to avoid getting this disease (and more importantly to me, bringing it home to my family).

My contingency plan is that if I show any symptoms at all at work is to go straight to the nearest hospital. I would then call my family and tell them where I am, and tell them to stay FAR away from me.

I am at a somewhat increased risk because people I work with directly routinely travel to Dallas and restock paper dispensers that are touched by tons of people all day long every day. They then return to the very building I work in. Every day. Since Dallas seems to be the "epicenter" of the latest episode, I'm a little concerned.

So, what do we know so far? It spreads by "fluid contact". That basically means contact with infected fluids from someone infected with Ebola virus. It has to get into your body somehow, so that means eyes, mouth, nose. Since nobody touches their face with anything other than their hands, it's important to keep your hands sanitized and not to touch your face in between.

"Fluid contact" is easier than most people think. Say hypothetically a guy who has Ebola coughs in his hand and opens a door. You open that door and walk out into bright sunshine and rub your eyes. Guess what? That's fluid transfer.

Ebola is MUCH easier to catch than the CDC is letting on. All you need to consider for proof of this is the nurses who contracted it. They knew exactly what they were dealing with. They were trained how to handle it. They were wearing at least some type of protective equipment that their hospital deemed worthy to use for the treatment of patients with Ebola..... And they still got it. If they were going above and beyond to prevent getting it, and still got it, what chance do we have? I don't have a family pack of level 4 biosafety suits in my garage. Do you?

The CDC says it's not airborne. However, they say it can be spread by droplets of saliva dispersed while sneezing. Into the eyes, or breathed into the nose..... Hmmmm, sounds "airborne" to me. A sneeze (IIRC) can completely fill a 30'X30' room with expelled particulates. How much more "airborne" does it have to be before it is considered as such?

Anyhow, for now I'm not going to panic, but I expect this to get worse before it gets better. Much worse. I fully expect this to be popping up like popcorn all over the place before it is fully contained.

If anybody has any info feel free to post here. BUT - keep politics out of it. This is about the disease only, and the awareness and prevention thereof.
 
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The CDC is not a source of accurate information, unfortunately.

There is every indication that Ebola can be contracted through aerosolized transmission and does not require, as the CDC stated, that direct contact with body fluids is required.

Also, the NIOSH surgical masks that the CDC says to wear are not effective, since they strain particulates greater than five microns and Ebola is smaller than that.
 
Since your work places you in areas you think may have danger, be aware that hand sanitizer will not kill Ebola. You need chlorinated bleach.
 
There's significant evidence that the virus is broken down in saliva, which means bodily fluids get much more restricted very quickly. I strongly encourage you to read up on the relevant virology, epidemiology and microbiology before making any assumptions one way or the other. Dunning-Kruger is running very wild with this and it's impossible to make statements like, "Ebola is MUCH easier to catch than..." based on a single transmission. You could be right, you could be completely off-base, there's simply not enough info to go on.
 
There is a level of unfounded panic floating around. I listen to a LOT of science reporting on these thing. The disease is transmitted by direct contact with body fluids and ONLY when the disease is in it's infectious phase, which is when the individual is very ill indeed.

The reason for the rapid spread in Africa are many. A nearly-nonexistent public health sector. Vast ignorance. Cultural factors. (In these countries, when one is sick, everyone clusters around the sick person. This situation was responsible for the deaths of so many Amerinds when European diseases started to infect the populations)
Also, sheer fear. They believe in conspiracy theories....That "the west" is bringing Ebola to them. That health-care workers are spreading the disease. That to be diagnosed is to die.... So they go hide if they think they are infected.
Health-care facilities have been attacked and workers killed.
We are talking about deep-seated fear and widespread ignorance. Remember, the concerned countries are not modern, bustling cities with a well-educated populace.
We have a total of what, 3 cases here in America? All properly contained and treated in high-tech isolation wards.

Do you seriously think that Ebola is going to be some sort of "Captain Tripps" scenario?
 
The next plague is long over due and past history would indicate people who live rural or in isolated areas stand a better chance in avoiding the disease than those who reside in urban areas.
 
This desease is of much greater concern to much less sophisticated countries than the US, but poses much less threat here. To further explain the reasons that Ebola is so dangerous in the African countries it is spreading in, many of these countries have no running water, no waste management systems, and no disposal areas for medical equipement. Re-using needles is not a strange thing in many of the hospitals in these areas, in order to be able to serve enough people, and the people are very slow to be able to accurately diagnose this desease.

In addition, Ebola effects the body in several ways that greatly fascilitate it's own propagation. Initial symptoms are similar to a bad cold, and cause lots of sneezing and coughing, spreading saliva into the air around those who are sick. After that, it progresses into violent diareah, which can cause severe dehidration, and death by shock. Considering the poor waste conditions there, this is a common way the desease spreads. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about people with dirty bathrooms, but rather people deficating on a beach like its a huge human litter box and people dumping their sewage into the streets like its the middle ages, so the sewage is a very common method of transmission.

Also, the desease can form a bloody rash over most of the body, obviously making it very difficult to treat without coming into contact with the blood of the patient, even with proper medical equipment. Like was said before people tend to group around those who are sick in these countries, in order to take care of them, but they use traditional medicine, and have almost no concept of transmition through contact with hazardous fluids.

The desease also causes propagation through sexual contact. Not to be political, but the sexual reputation of that perticular part of the world is very poor compared to here, so this can also be a common method of propogation, but is much harder to track accurately over there outside of the household.

The saliva spreading through coughs and sneezes is not an extremely dangerous method of propagation, though if you are in an area that has had more cases reported (right now this does NOT include the US), then you should take precautions to protect yourself as much as possible. If the desease does become more of an issue here, then common methods of dealing with it would be wearing sanitary gloves when coming into contact with people on a regular basis, and washing and cleaning your hands very regularly, while avoiding contact with public lavatories as much as possible. Avoiding any sharing of food with anyone who has been in a risk situation would also be advisable, because even if the desease does not survive long in saliva, sharing food would be the easiest way to transmit through saliva. Avoiding sex with people you haven't had a long-term relationship with is always advisable, and avoiding contact with people who have been in a risk situation is a given.

If the desease does mutate and become airborn (very VERY low chance, but there is a chance), then THAT is when we should honestly start to worry about it with ernest. This desease is manageable in modern countries, and we will likely be able to pass it without having severe issues, but poorer countries are going to have disastrous results from this in all likelyhood.

Basically, avoid going out of country if you're going anywhere near the affected areas, and take normal precautions in your daily lives, and this shouldn't be a great threat to us here in the US. There are some people at more risk than others, and the people who pose the greatest threat to us as a populous are those that conract the desease and do not properly report or try to manage their symptoms, but there are several precautions already being carried out to try and manage anyone coming in from danger zones.

Anyone who has aditional info that conflicts with mine, let me know and we can do a little more research to see if I've missed something. Providing accurate info on this is key.

EDIT: One of the things I forgot to mention, that people might worry about, is that this desease CAN be transmitted through sweat as well. Again AT THIS TIME this desease is not a significant threat in this country, but if this does become more of a concern, people should avoid gyms, sports arenas, and other places that people commonly sweat at without cleaning it properly. Again, this is not a critical concern at this time, but those that are cautious should take it into consideration. Buying used clothing would not be recomended either, just FYI
 
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This could be a huge problem in the US if this gets a foot hold in Central and South America it would be another situation just like Africa but now threatening our borders.There also much overcrowding,unsanitary conditions and engagement in high risk behaviors going on all around us in this country.If I had to take a some what of an educated guess I would say the only way we will be able to defend ourselves or even beat the Ebola threat is to develop a vaccination against it.
 
Did you guys know that the Ebola virus is actually patented? And guess who owns the patent? The CDC. Food for thought.
 
Scott Hanson said:
If I had to take a some what of an educated guess I would say the only way we will be able to defend ourselves or even beat the Ebola threat is to develop a vaccination against it.
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I'm willing to bet there already is a vaccine for Ebola. The FDA is just keeping it a secret, like they have with the cure for cancer for years.
 
I'm willing to bet foul play is involved and that some carriers or those leveraged into behaving badly are transmitting the disease even through appropriate gear! My understanding of this is that Ebola is not that easy to catch. In the service when my wife and I worked in dentistry our training did not stress this disease as anything so prevalent as to be that contagious. Either something has changed and the disease is patented as claimed and genetically modified and maybe even made airborne by this mutation but without knowing that all I can say is for that nurse to get infected foul play has to be considered.

Dallas came on the news this am here and they say there at the Hospital that they followed all protocol correctly and that it was not a breach of protocol at all! So in my mind if all else is proven wrong it can only be what is left! And what is left is foul play and if that is too political an opinion my apologies. I feel this is a attack, probably by the Russian mob working diligently to get a stronger foot hold in Mexico over the Northern and Southern Mexican gangs.
 
I'll take the risk of getting Ebola over swimming in southern waters in the U.S., where I could get flesh eating bacteria.
 
Conspiracy theories aside, it doesn't seem to me like Ebola is all that hard to catch. Trained people taking every precaution not to get it got it. That's proof enough for me. And if it can be spread by sneezes, it darn sure sounds airborne to me.
 
AntDog said:
Conspiracy theories aside, it doesn't seem to me like Ebola is all that hard to catch. Trained people taking every precaution not to get it got it. That's proof enough for me. And if it can be spread by sneezes, it darn sure sounds airborne to me.
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It is aerosolized, not airborne.
 
So what constitutes airborne? Skin cells blowing off and infecting people a mile away? If I'm across the room and Ebola guy sneezes and I can catch it.... How much more airborne does it have to be to get the classification?
 
AntDog said:
So what constitutes airborne? Skin cells blowing off and infecting people a mile away? If I'm across the room and Ebola guy sneezes and I can catch it.... How much more airborne does it have to be to get the classification?
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It's close to that but likely not that bad even honestly. When saliva is dispersed from a sneeze it actually travels a fairly short distance before simply falling to the ground. Also, Ebola has been tested to decay in saliva fairly quickly. Needless to say, it's very inadvisable to stay in a room with someone who has any disease and is coughing profusely, but it is not much easier to get Ebola from someone through coughing than getting the flu from someone in the same room.

Airborne diseases are something we do not honestly see much, and if Ebola was airborne, it would be something else entirely. An airborne virus is capable of living outside of bodily fluids and sustaining it's composition while floating in the air. If the disease was airborne, then it would be able to spread through airways and over the wind to infect people much faster who were as much as miles apart. Considering it's current infection rate, if the disease jumped to airborne, you could expect a very large part of the continent of Africa would be infected in a relatively short period of time, and it would pretty easily spread across major airways across large areas very quickly outside of the continent.

Airborne diseases are very dangerous, but the reality of the matter is that Ebola is not the type of virus that can typically become airborne. There is a minuscule possibility of it, but most virologists would consider it negligible at this time. As the virus continues to propagate, it might become harder to track all of it's mutations though.
 
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