Ebola Outbreak in exponential growth


There's a good article on New York Times today, called Ebola Wars. Well worth a read. And they clearly dispell the possibility that it would become airbone (that would be very unlikely) however they clearly mention than if it became less virulent it would cause many more deaths in the long run (because the period of transmission would lengthen, basically).
 
There's a good article on New York Times today, called Ebola Wars. Well worth a read. And they clearly dispell the possibility that it would become airbone (that would be very unlikely)
Have you got a link to that? Tried to find it but my Google Fu seems to have deserted me.

I'd love to hear an explanation of why Ebola could not be transmitted via coughing & sneezing as it resides in all bodily fluids in an infected person. 
 
There's a good article on New York Times today, called Ebola Wars. Well worth a read. And they clearly dispell the possibility that it would become airbone (that would be very unlikely)
 Have you got a link to that? Tried to find it but my Google Fu seems to have deserted me.

I'd love to hear an explanation of why Ebola could not be transmitted via coughing & sneezing as it resides in all bodily fluids in an infected person.
It's called an Aerosol effect. When the patient (infected) sneezes or coughs, small particulates are ejected into the atmosphere. These are infectious. However, they're large and affected by gravity so will fall to the floor or any flat surfaces given time where they either die naturally or are destroyed by cleaning agents.

Airborne are particles that are too small to fall and float around indefinitely, remaining infectious for much longer.

D.
 
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There's a good article on New York Times today, called Ebola Wars. Well worth a read. And they clearly dispell the possibility that it would become airbone (that would be very unlikely)
Have you got a link to that? Tried to find it but my Google Fu seems to have deserted me.


I'd love to hear an explanation of why Ebola could not be transmitted via coughing & sneezing as it resides in all bodily fluids in an infected person. 
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars

newyorker, sorry, not NYtimes. My bad.

here's the extract :

The question often asked is whether Ebola could evolve to spread through the air in dried particles, entering the body along a pathway into the lungs. Eric Lander, the head of the Broad Institute, thinks that this is the wrong question to ask. Lander is tall, with a square face and a mustache, and he speaks rapidly and with conviction. “That’s like asking the question ‘Can zebras become airborne,’ ” he said. In order to become fully airborne, Ebola virus particles would need to be able to survive in a dehydrated state on tiny dust motes that remain suspended in the air and then be able to penetrate cells in the lining of the lungs. Lander thinks that Ebola is very unlikely to develop these abilities. “That would be like saying that a virus that has evolved to have a certain life style, spreading through direct contact, can evolve all of a sudden to have a totally different life style, spreading in dried form through the air. A better question would be ‘Can zebras learn to run faster?’ ”

There are many ways by which Ebola could become more contagious even without becoming airborne, Lander said. For example, it could become less virulent in humans, causing a milder disease and killing maybe twenty per cent of its victims instead of fifty per cent. This could leave more of them sick rather than dead, and perhaps sick for longer. That might be good for Ebola, since the host would live longer and could start even more chains of infection.
 
What sort of dedication would you need to have to contract ebola willingly, considering it is very rare popcultural phenomenon in the western world.

On some level that commands a great deal of respect though. Lets end it on a good note, hipsters.
 
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Current strain mutating faster than previous strains:

"Operon Labs, which as cited in detail below, notes that "the current Ebola 2014 virus is mutating at a similar rate to seasonal flu (Influenza A).  This means the current Ebola outbreak has a very high intrinsic rate of viral mutation.  The bottom line is that the Ebola virus is changing rapidly, and in the intermediate to long term (3 months to 24 months), Ebola has the potential to evolve."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-21/ebola-2014-mutating-fast-seasonal-flu
 
The local supermarket cashiers are giving me weird looks as I checkout with a cart full of canned foods.

Ahead of the curve. Lets see how things look when the first cases appear in germany.
 
Ahead of the curve. Lets see how things look when the first cases appear in germany.
The spread would be much less with the current virus at least in any developed country. Where the virus is spreading currently, a number of people have no access to water or soap, cannot wash themselves as much as we can, and have the practice of touching/kissing the deads during funerals: nothing better to spread infections like Ebola. On top of that most of them ignore the reality of microbes/bacteria/viruses and are fooled by healers who bullshit them constantly about the origins of the disease. 
 
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Don't forget that we already have cases of health care workers infected in western countries, where hygiene standards are "high".

It does not look like the international response projected for Nov-Dec will be sufficient to push R0 below 1.0.

"For the caseloads predicted for late November and December, the 70% treatment level seen as needed to bring things under control corresponds to tens of thousands of beds"

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21625813-ebola-epidemic-west-africa-poses-catastrophic-threat-region-and-could-yet

The situation is fucking grim.
 
Ebola cases could reach 1.4 million by 2015

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/23/cdc-ebola-1-4-million.html

Don't forget that we already have cases of health care workers infected in western countries, where hygiene standards are "high".
Yeah; but do they spread? The answer is clearly NO, for now. SO that says a lot how different the situation is there vs in the infected countries.
They got infected by "spread".  Others will follow.
 
Don't forget the avian flu, when many EU country bought tons of vaccines that they eventually had to throw away.
 
Ebola frightens people due to the high mortality rate. but it do not spread well at all...

the 5000 or so death we currently got is quite low compared to the 250 to 500k annual death of the regular Influenza...
 
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