Ebola

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Re: Ebola

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Fri Oct 17, '14, 6:38 pm

Okay I feel like I should apologize for some of my comments above regarding the Nurse traveling when she may have symptoms of ebola. Since I made that post above I have read reports that the Nurse did call and ask the CDC (Center For Disease Control) about traveling before she made her trip and they told her it was OKAY!!! Say what??? All of those nurses should have been quarantined until any possible danger from them was over, imho. If the CDC can't even get it right, we are in big trouble here!!! I know this is new to everyone but we are all looking to them for help and answers, which they may not have or something. :yikes:

This is all over the news. So many things going on. One of the nurses in question has been sent to hospital in Atlanta. The other nurse sent to another hospital in Maryland, I think it was or some place near there. Now I've read a cruise ship has been detained somewhere because one of the Nurses that treated the guy that died in Texas is on there, etc. Also read that Nurses treated the guy that died for two days before they had any protective gear to wear...oh no!! Also, that plane the nurse was on has been put out of service for now, pilot and flight crew have been relieved of duty for now, and they are still trying to contact all passengers, etc. Just so much out there.

And, President Obama has now appointed an ebola czar to handle all this mess:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola- ... ar-n228151

I wonder if this new czar will wind up being the "scapegoat" for it all as well?
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Re: Ebola

Postby Wolf Bird » Mon Oct 20, '14, 2:05 am

Part of the big problem here is that thanks to Congress basically being a giant gridlock, we do not have a Surgeon General right now, so the job of overseeing all this is basically falling to the heads of the CDC and NIH, who shouldn't be having to both oversee their agencies AND communicate with the public. This czar can hopefully fill in the role the Surgeon General would have. In terms of the nurse who was on the flight, she registered a fever of 99.1 (I think) and the cut off for flying is 100.4. I heard on an NPR talk show I listen to that that particular regulation may be revisited due to Ebola.

But here's one thing to consider. Basically unless you're a health worker, your risk of getting this disease in the U.S. remains incredibly low, and unfortunately, IMO, we're still largely overreacting to this and the media really doesn't do much to help as fear is marketable. This disease does not spread to you unless you come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is symptomatic. This thing with disinfecting planes, shutting down schools over fear of Ebola, etc. is accomplishing little except spreading panic. The larger public is not at much risk here; again, we're approaching flu season and that poses a far greater risk to the average American than Ebola does as it spreads much more easily and kills far more here. But you don't see the flu all over the news. The flu spreads through air droplets that can be coughed or sneezed by an infected individual. Ebola doesn't produce those sorts of respiratory symptoms, and doesn't spread that way like flu does. And right now, current evidence indicates that Ebola mutating so it can spread like flu is extremely, extremely unlikely. Ebola only spreads if you come into contact with bodily fluids like blood, sweat, vomit, etc. of an infected patient. That's it. Most people aren't doing that kind of thing, and most people are thus at little risk of contracting the virus.

That's not to say we shouldn't be careful, or undervalue our health workers. Our health workers definitely need better training so they can protect themselves while treating patients with this virus, but unfortunately, both the CDC and NIH have been subject to massive budget cuts in the last few years, which hampers their ability to get health workers and hospitals adequate training and resources to deal with this kind of disease. The waste management of the Ebola patient in Dallas was apparently a huge problem as I heard on Rachel Maddow yesterday, as people with this disease are expelling massive amounts of infectious fluid and it creates infectious waste (towels, sheets, etc.). Right about now, in terms of bungling up this case in Dallas with the original patient and the nurses, it seems that both the hospital, local public health officials and the CDC are all at fault. The hospital shouldn't have turned him away in the first place as he had told the staff he was recently in Liberia (which should be a big red flag), they should've acted quicker once he was admitted to get the staff properly protected, and the CDC shouldn't have green lighted the nurse to travel, given her history of having treated the patient for a period without protective gear when he was probably highly infectious.

This is one of those things where the medical world knows quite well what to do and how to do it. The question is, do hospitals, the CDC and NIH, collectively, have both the will and the resources to do it? And if they don't have the resources, are we, as a society, willing to give them those resources?

If we, as a country, want to do something about Ebola, we'd be much better served committing resources to West Africa and organizations acting there, where it truly is a crisis, then panicking at home over 3 cases out of over 300 million people, at the cusp of flu season, which kills thousands of Americans each year. The second thing we need to do is properly protect, prepare and train our health care workers. But after that, this virus is not much to fear for the average American. Keep in mind the enterovirus D68 which is spreading among children, and has been found in 846 cases in 46 states, and has killed 5 children. That disease, however, is likely to decline with the onset of the flu season.

http://www.cdc.gov/non-polio-enteroviru ... reaks.html

But you're note hearing EVD68 and flu in the news, both of which are far more likely to affect an American than Ebola. Yet it's Ebola that the media is hyped about and that many people and organizations are overreacting to. Case in point, this teacher in Maine, who was put on 21 day administrative leave for merely visiting Dallas to attend a conference, due to fears of Ebola.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/10 ... ed-dallas/
Last edited by Wolf Bird on Mon Oct 20, '14, 2:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Mon Oct 20, '14, 6:45 pm

Good news for some of the family of the ebola victim who died in Texas and that have been in quarantine for several weeks as they now have the all clear and can now be released.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Wolf Bird » Mon Oct 20, '14, 8:15 pm

It shows that casual contact is unlikely to spread the virus. Glad they are in the clear and can resume regular life.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Tue Oct 21, '14, 5:04 am

Yes, it is quite encouraging news. And some more good news on the news this evening as they said that another patient that has been treated in an Atlanta hospital for several weeks now has also been released. I think this was the journalist that may have had ebola. Anyway, seems he is okay now.

And, I read online that Nigeria has been declared ebola free as they have not had any new cases in awhile now. Very good news there.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Wolf Bird » Tue Oct 21, '14, 3:17 pm

I saw on Facebook this morning that Doctors Without Borders have had to their 1,000th patient in Africa survive the virus. That's definitely good news.

http://www.msf.org.uk/article/my-son-is ... a-survivor

One of the successful treatments has been blood transfusions from survivors of the virus to infected patients, so sick individuals get the viral antibodies from the survivors. It's sort of a form of vaccination to train the immune system to recognize the virus before it can do too much damage. This is important, as one thing that makes Ebola deadly once infected is that it's able to subvert the immune system. Once your immune system figures out the virus is there, it goes into overdrive mode, which is basically too much, too late. It's the immune system reaction that often kills, with fluid loss and organ failure, rather than the hemorrhaging that Ebola is infamous for.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Fri Oct 24, '14, 11:40 pm

That is good news, Wolf Bird. More good news today is that the first Texas nurse has been declared ebola free. I saw some of a news conference she made today. She is a very beautiful young lady. So happy everything turned out well for her. And, they say her dog is ebola free also. He is so cute. Hope they are reunited soon.

However, on the other hand, a new case of ebola in New York today. Hope that guy gets well soon.

Also read where someone donated over $100 Million, I think it was, to fight ebola. And, others have donated amounts also such as the facebook founder, etc. That should help enormously in fighting this dreaded disease.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Wolf Bird » Sat Oct 25, '14, 2:00 am

The BBC just reported both nurses survived the virus.

http://m.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29749283

The man in New York got it while serving with Doctors Without Borders, and is now getting treatment at a world class, well-prepared hospital in NYC.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Tue Oct 28, '14, 2:46 am

Well, so far it seems that everyone that is in the USA that has been thought to have had the ebola virus seems to be doing fairly well right now as far as I know (except of course for the gentleman that died, and I really think they may have had a better chance saving him if he had gotten treatment earlier, but who knows for certain?). I did hear something about a young child being rushed to the hospital in NY, I think but not sure on that, but I think they said he did not have ebola after all, which is good news. Although there does seem to be a problem with someone that recently returned from overseas and was supposed to be under the 21 day quarantine and she is very unhappy with the way she was treated, etc. But also heard today that she has been allowed to go home now I believe. Sad to say but you can't make everyone happy when dealing with situations such as this. It's better to be safe than sorry is my opinion though.
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Re: Ebola

Postby Wolf Bird » Wed Oct 29, '14, 4:21 am

I think we're getting close to the point where fear of the disease starts doing more harm than the disease itself in the US. Public health officials are at odds with a lot of politicians who seem eager to quarantine just about anyone who has been in west Africa, or even anywhere in Africa, even parts completely unaffected by Ebola. Two doctoral students at the Yale School of Public Health who were helping with setting up computerized disease tracking models in west Africa have tested negative for Ebola and likely had absolutely no contact with symptomatic individuals, and thus no chance of contracting the virus (key fact: Ebola ONLY spreads through direct contact of bodily fluids of infected, symptomatic patients - they were in contact with someone who did become ill with the disease, but that was before that individual became symptomatic and able to transmit the virus). Yet, both have been ordered to stay in mandatory quarantine by the state of the Connecticut with a cop car outside their apartments making sure no one goes in or out. They are not symptomatic, with no real reason to think they have the virus and will actually fall ill and thus become able to spread the virus.

http://www.courant.com/health/hc-quaran ... tml#page=1

There's being cautious and safe, but there's also overreacting and spreading fear not justified by medical and public health science. And the overreaction of quarantining anyone who is in that region without symptoms or any reason to think that they will develop symptoms other than having been in west Africa has potential to simply discourage volunteers from going to where the help is really needed with combating Ebola. And until the problem in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia is under control, cases are going to keep cropping up around the world, as infectious diseases aren't limited by national boundaries.

Politicians are not the people who are best qualified with making medical and public health decisions. Actions like this have been widely condemned by the medical and public health communities as being unnecessary, unjustified by science, spreading unfounded fear, and acting as a disincentive for qualified health professionals to lend their talents where it's really needed.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/10/27 ... uarantines

Caution is good. But we shouldn't be letting fear lead us to make overcautious decisions that may do more harm than good.
Last edited by Wolf Bird on Wed Oct 29, '14, 4:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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