Ebola outbreak in Africa, 2014

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Messages
16,877
Reaction score
5,196
Location
Near the gargoyles
Website
www.alessandrakelley.com
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26701733

An outbreak of the ebola virus began in Guinea last month.

There has never been an outbreak of ebola in Guinea before.

The hemorrhagic fever has spread from deep inland to the capital city of Conakry, a port city of 2 million people.

"At least 59 out of 80 who contracted Ebola across the West African country have died so far," a Unicef statement quoted by the AFP news agency.

Medecins sans Frontières is shipping in specialists, medicine, and equipment from France and Belgium to help contain the epidemic.
 
Last edited:

Albedo

Alex
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
7,363
Reaction score
2,924
Location
A dimension of pure BEES
One of the blessings of Ebola is it is so virulent it has never managed to escape small rural communities before burning itself out. It's never reached a major city before, where all bets are off.

Sleep tight.
 

cornflake

practical experience, FTW
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2012
Messages
16,171
Reaction score
3,734
Even in a larger community, it's so hot it shouldn't be that likely to get out of control. One would hope. Unless it mutated into something less hot but equally deadly. That'd be bad.
 

rugcat

Lost in the Fog
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
16,339
Reaction score
4,110
Location
East O' The Sun & West O' The Moon
Website
www.jlevitt.com
Even in a larger community, it's so hot it shouldn't be that likely to get out of control. One would hope. Unless it mutated into something less hot but equally deadly. That'd be bad.
From what I understand about Ebola, it's not like influenza which mutates rapidly. There are several subtypes, but they all are stable viruses that have been around for a long, long time.

It's not at all likely that one of the viruses would mutate into something deadly as the current virus, but with the capacity to spread like the flu.
 

cornflake

practical experience, FTW
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 11, 2012
Messages
16,171
Reaction score
3,734
From what I understand about Ebola, it's not like influenza which mutates rapidly. There are several subtypes, but they all are stable viruses that have been around for a long, long time.

It's not at all likely that one of the viruses would mutate into something deadly as the current virus, but with the capacity to spread like the flu.

Getting access to a larger population made me wonder, though afaik we don't know what the general outbreak triggers are so... :Shrug:
 

Teinz

Back at it again.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 20, 2010
Messages
2,440
Reaction score
186
Location
My favourite chair by the window.
That's scary news indeed. I once read a Tom Clancy novel in which terrorists managed to weaponize Ebola en set it loose on the States. Scary, scary, scary....
 

robeiae

Touch and go
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
46,262
Reaction score
9,912
Location
on the Seven Bridges Road
Website
thepondsofhappenstance.com
There are conflicting reports, it would seem, but Ebola does seem to have been detected:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/uk-guinea-ebola-idUKBREA2N0WY20140324

At least 59 people have died after contracting a mystery illness in southeastern Guinea since early February. Six cases have been confirmed as Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever with a fatality rate of as high as 90 percent.

None of the suspected cases in the capital Conakry have tested positive. However, the deaths are the first confirmed from Ebola in West Africa and a suspected case reported in neighbouring Sierra Leone has raised fears the disease may spread into other nations with weak health systems.

"Preliminary sequencing of a portion of the virus is compatible with the Zaire species," experts at the Lyon-based Institut Pasteur said in a statement.
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,298
Location
Wash., D.C. area
We've had a couple ebola outbreaks in Uganda in the last two years. One of them got very close to Kampala, which is crazy crowded. Fortunately both outbreaks burned themselves out/were contained with only a few deaths.

The good news is that most African governments know to look for it, and the rapid response from the local governments and overseas help from the CDC, WHO, MSF, and other groups is pretty effective. Not to say there's nothing to worry about, since an ebola outbreak in a country experiencing civil war (such as South Sudan, where ebola has ran rampant before) would be devastating.
 

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Messages
16,877
Reaction score
5,196
Location
Near the gargoyles
Website
www.alessandrakelley.com
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26735118

Guinea has banned the sale and consumption of bats, which are believed to be asymptomatic carriers of the ebola virus, Guinean Health Minister Rene Lamah has announced.

Sierra Leone and Liberia, which border Guinea, are investigating seven possible cases of ebola within their borders.
 

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Messages
16,877
Reaction score
5,196
Location
Near the gargoyles
Website
www.alessandrakelley.com
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/guinea-ebola-idINL5N0MS37K20140331

Medecins Sans Frontières is now calling the scale of this outbreak "unprecedented".

Two cases have been confirmed in Liberia, which means the epidemic has jumped borders.

Eighty people have died so far. 22 of the cases have been laboratory confirmed as ebola.

Senegal has closed its border with Guinea and Sierra Leone is considering closing its border.
 

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2005
Messages
29,138
Reaction score
8,563
Location
Toronto
Website
ktcraig.com
Wow. Scary stuff. Seems they are trying their best to contain it. Let's hope they're successful. It seems to be creeping...
 

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
22,617
Reaction score
7,298
Location
Wash., D.C. area
This is a long-lived outbreak. It usually burns itself out by now. Let's hope it's not mutating into a longer-lived strain.
 

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Messages
16,877
Reaction score
5,196
Location
Near the gargoyles
Website
www.alessandrakelley.com
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/02/-sp-ebola-out-of-control-west-africa

West African health ministers [today] began a two-day summit in Ghana’s capital of Accra to discuss ways to strengthen regional co-operation. The global health body has also warned four other west African countries – Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau – to prepare for the possible arrival of travellers carrying the virus.

“This is different from other cases just by the fact it’s a cross-border epidemic. Previous outbreaks have been very localised, which makes them easier to isolate and contain. Now for the first time, it’s also affecting urban areas,” said Dr Nestor Ndayimirije, Liberia’s WHO representative who has handled epidemics in several other countries.

Containment of the outbreak has been hampered by superstition, mistrust of corrupt government officials, fear of contagion, and burial practices. People seem to fear ebola as a boogeyman without understanding its symptoms or treatment.

when the outbreak first began, popular text messages circulating in Guinea said an antidote could be found in a concoction of hot chocolate, coffee, milk, raw onions and sugar.
 

crunchyblanket

the Juggernaut of Imperfection
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Messages
4,870
Reaction score
766
Location
London's grey and pleasant land
This is a long-lived outbreak. It usually burns itself out by now. Let's hope it's not mutating into a longer-lived strain.

This is the really terrifying thing. Ebola usually 'eats through' victims so quickly that it doesn't have time to spread in any large-scale way. The fact that it is not only persisting but actively spreading away from the hot zone is bloody terrifying. Either there's some seriously lax infection control going on, helping the virus to spread, or Ebola is beginning to change and we are all proper fucked.
 

kaitie

With great power comes
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
10,994
Reaction score
2,525
It does sound like a lot of the problem is lax infection control. From what I've read, many people mistrust the doctors, and there are many myths about how people get it and how to get rid of it. Add to that people who are getting sick (or around those getting sick) are traveling, and that's made it spread more readily. A lot of burial practices involve touching or kissing a body, which means people are spreading it at funerals.

It's possible that this strain is a new one and just doesn't act the same way as before, but the articles I've read from the beginning have said that the doctors didn't have enough people or enough supplies and were getting a lot of backlash from the people who they were trying to treat. I feel like I read last week that a group of Red Cross doctors were actually driven out of an area with threats of violence.
 

veinglory

volitare nequeo
Self-Ban
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
28,750
Reaction score
2,933
Location
right here
Website
www.veinglory.com
The spread does seem to be down to a particular cultural climate including rejecting hospitalization and body handling surrounding funerals. Ebola still does not seem to be able to spread through any kind of casual contact but only from interaction with infected blood.
 

KateW

Registered
Joined
Jun 24, 2014
Messages
16
Reaction score
3
Edited: Kaitie is right. As I had mentioned I was rather emotional and biased, and as such, was unfair. I have removed the post since it shouldn't have been written in the first place and beg pardon.

:)
 
Last edited:

kaitie

With great power comes
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
10,994
Reaction score
2,525
I think that's a really unfair assessment of doctors. I've met a guy from Doctors Without Borders, and I'd say he was the most passionate doctor I've seen. Most doctors don't pack up for remote, poor areas to deal with difficult situations, and those who do tend to care.

Doctors aren't supposed to test on people. There is a procedure to making sure treatments are safe. If this doctor had had a 100% death rate instead of 80%, I can guarantee he'd be in the annals for experimenting on humans and the fact that they might have saved someone but didn't because of his experiment.

If he got lucky and it worked, that's great, but human experimentation is generally frowned on by the medical community for good reason that has nothing to do with enjoying sitting around watching people die while you do paperwork.

Read this article. It'll show you what the foreign doctors are facing, and how they feel about it.