[ROCKMAN]

Yes...Ebola is scary. So is the flu: Large numbers of flu cases are being reported in 25 states, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu season is hitting its stride and the death toll is on the rise. Twenty-five states are reporting a widespread number of influenza cases, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, with Texas listing 19 dead, including a 13-year-old girl, since the flu season began in October.

So far in Texas: Ebola... zero and flu...19. Time will tell which is the greater threat in the future.

[Graeme]

‘Thousands’ of US visas issued to residents in Ebola-stricken countries

Worried about the outstanding number of American visas held by people in Ebola-stricken countries, a controversial immigrant studies group thinks the Obama administration should restrict travel to the United States.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says there have been 13,500 visas issued to people in the three countries primarily affected by Ebola – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leon – and worries that contagious residents could potentially use those visas to seek medical help in the US and possibly trigger further outbreaks.

The controversial non-partisan group, which seeks immigration reduction in the United States, said on Wednesday that it used government statistics to draw its conclusion about the number of outstanding visas.

“Using 2013 non-immigrant visa issuance statistics and information on visa validity periods, I estimate that there are about 5,000 people from Sierra Leone, 5,000 people from Guinea, and 3,500 from Liberia who have valid non-immigrant visas to enter the United States,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at CIS.

Those statistics, however, cannot be verified on the Department of State’s own US Visas website, which shows that in 2013 only 552 travel visas were issued to people in Guinea, 2,332 to people in Liberia, and 1,369 to people in Sierra Leone – making for a total of 5,252 visas. The data does not show how many are still valid in 2014, as visas can expire after one or two years.

Still, CIS’ Vaughan maintains that President Obama and “his immigration agencies have the authority and the responsibility to deny admission to any alien that has a communicable disease.”

RT

[TrickyDick]

The virus can be spread through bodily fluids such as:

blood
stool
urine
saliva
semen

Hmmmm, where would blood, stool, urine, saliva and semen come together? Oh wait, this is an African disease. So, maybe those do-gooders down there on the Dark Continent were having anal sex with Ebola patients? I dunno. But it's a great story to scare the crap out of the average American dimwit, whether it is real or not. I halfway suspect the story is fake. Or if it is a real outbreak of Ebola in the U.S., then they imported it on purpose.

I know. Tinfoil hat land. Still. These things don't just happen accidentally. In a REAL 1st world country, they wouldn't let those infected do-gooders back in the damn country in the first place, so there! The idea of quarantine wasn't just invented now. The fact that they let them in tells you that the government is either working against our best interests, or they are lying to scare us.

[ROCKMAN]

Dick - If someone wanted to hit the US with a biological threat there are a number of better choices. This one only requires an infected person to cough in a crowded room:

Pneumonic plague, a severe type of lung infection, is one of three main forms of plague, all of which are caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is more virulent and rare than bubonic plague. The difference between the versions of plague is simply the location of the infection in the body; the bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, the pneumonic plague is an infection of the respiratory system, and the septicaemic plague is an infection in the blood stream. Primary pneumonic plague results from inhalation of fine infective droplets and can be transmitted from human to human without involvement of fleas or animals. Untreated pneumonic plague has a very high fatality rate.

[TrickyDick]

I agree, there are no doubt better infectious diseases out there. But Ebola fits in with the overarching media meme that Africa is a hapless place that needs our help and therefore we need to send missionaries there and we need to let the do-gooders back in and treat them if they are infected.

Do you see? It has a semi-believable 'cover story' for itself. It's kind of like the movie Aliens I when Ash lets the infected Brit back on the ship, overriding Ripley's order as acting captain to keep the guy with the alien attached to his face in quarantine for 24 hours. The reason given was 'well, what were we supposed to do, let him suffer, untreated?'.

The result and purpose of these Ebola patients coming into the US is just more government sponsored terror against the populace. It's like they are saying 'see? look how bad we can screw things up!'. They seem to be wanting to get rid of any feeling of safety we have. Our medical safety is becoming Third World. We now get these infections from Mexico that were wiped out here in the U.S. decades ago.

[Graeme]

I'd like to provide an update on Ebola. Apparently, a UN official regards Ebola to be worse than HIV or SARS. And further to my last post on the previous page, Breitbart Texas reports that thousands have been allowed to enter the US without additional screening since January first 2014.

Over 3,500 passengers from Ebola affected nations have been allowed to enter the U.S. without any special screening since January 1, 2014, according to a leaked internal intelligence report from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Intelligence and Liaison exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas. In addition, the individuals entered into at least 18 heavily populated U.S. cities across the nation.

The leaked report specifically reads, “According to CBP [Customs and Border Protection] data, since January 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014, a total of 3,566 passengers with a nexus to Guinea transited through or arrived at U.S. airports.” The term “nexus” refers to passengers who flew from the Ebola stricken nation to a second nation, and then from the second nation into the United States. Guinea is attributed as the nation of origin for the current Ebola outbreak.

The lack of any special processes or testing for individuals with a nexus to Ebola affected nations is illumined in the leaked internal report as well. It reads, “The Level 3 travel alert issued by the CDC on July 31st remains in effect as of August 13, 2014. The travel alert urges all US residents to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea. Although CBP is not doing any additional screening of passengers from the affected countries, CBP has enhanced their screening routine processes through guidance and training. Additionally, CDC is providing assistance with exit screening and communication efforts in West Africa to prevent sick travelers from boarding planes.”

The report indicates that the vast majority of the 3,566 of passengers with a nexus to the nation of origin for the current Ebola outbreak either deplaned in or traveled through New York City. Other cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Miami, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburg, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Fort Lauderdale, and Cleveland.

The NYTimes has just reported the following:

As U.S. Ebola Fears Widen, Reports of Possible Cases Grow

In Washington, a patient who had traveled to Nigeria and who was suspected of having Ebola was placed in isolation at Howard University Hospital on Thursday. In New Haven, two Yale University graduate students plan to voluntarily sequester themselves when they return this weekend from Liberia, where they had helped the government develop a system to track the Ebola epidemic. And at Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday, a sick man who had just arrived from Brussels was rushed to a hospital amid suspicions that he was showing Ebola-like symptoms.

With fears about Ebola widening across the United States, federal health officials said on Saturday that they were receiving an escalating number of reports of possible Ebola infection, particularly since a Liberian man tested positive for the deadly disease in Dallas last week, the first Ebola case diagnosed in this country. Since the disease began spreading rapidly across West Africa over the summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, it has assessed more than 100 possible cases, but only the Dallas case has been confirmed.

[Graeme]

U.S. Considering Tougher Ebola Screening at Major Airports

The Obama administration is strongly considering ramping up screening for Ebola at major airports in the United States, sources told NBC News. The U.S. is weighing whether to deploy the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or other personnel to key hubs for flights that originate in West Africa, where there are thousands of cases of the virus, the sources said. The enhanced measures would be a supplement to screenings done at the point of departure in countries with high Ebola infection rates.

Passengers arriving in the U.S. could be questioned about whether they had contact with infected people in their country of origin, and their temperatures could be taken for any warning signs. The boosted screenings at a handful of American airports would cover three-fourths of all arriving passengers from West Africa.

nbcnews

Top doctor 'not surprised' if US has another Ebola case, downplays use of virus in bioterror attack

The United States’ top infectious-disease doctor suggested Sunday that more people inside the country will be diagnosed with Ebola but dismissed as “far-fetched” concerns about somebody bringing the deadly disease across the U.S.-Mexico border in a bio-terror attack.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told “Fox News Sunday” that 50 people inside the country are now being monitored for the deadly virus and that the country’s first confirmed patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, is back in critical condition at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, in Dallas.

“I would not be surprised if somebody who has close contact with Mr. Duncan actual contracted Ebola,” said Fauci, who also repeated his faith in the U.S. health care system in being able to prevent an outbreak.

foxnews

[Beery1]

...Yersinia pestis. It is more virulent and rare than bubonic plague.

Is that related to Yerginia Pestis - the virus that results in the award of the Schlesinger Medal for Energy Security?

[ennui2]

I agree, there are no doubt better infectious diseases out there. But Ebola fits in with the overarching media meme that Africa is a hapless place that needs our help and therefore we need to send missionaries there and we need to let the do-gooders back in and treat them if they are infected.

Do you see? It has a semi-believable 'cover story' for itself. It's kind of like the movie Aliens I when Ash lets the infected Brit back on the ship, overriding Ripley's order as acting captain to keep the guy with the alien attached to his face in quarantine for 24 hours. The reason given was 'well, what were we supposed to do, let him suffer, untreated?'.

The result and purpose of these Ebola patients coming into the US is just more government sponsored terror against the populace. It's like they are saying 'see? look how bad we can screw things up!'. They seem to be wanting to get rid of any feeling of safety we have. Our medical safety is becoming Third World. We now get these infections from Mexico that were wiped out here in the U.S. decades ago.

Relating this story to a movie only proves that you have an overactive paranoid imagination that is spinning fiction and then mistaking it as fact.

[Graeme]

WHO warns of Ebola health care risks

A prominent World Health Organisation official has warned that more Ebola cases can be expected among medical staff - even in developed countries with modern health care systems.

Professor Peter Piot said that he was not surprised that a Spanish nurse had contracted the disease.

The nurse has become the first person known to have contracted the deadly virus outside West Africa.

She treated two Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola in Madrid.

The nurse, identified in media reports as Teresa Romero, looked after the pair after they were repatriated from West Africa.

She remains in quarantine in the Spanish capital with her husband and 50 other people in Spain are being monitored.


Professor Piot, a world specialist in Ebola now brought in by the WHO as a scientific advisor, warned that even the simplest movement, like rubbing your eyes, is a risk.

"The smallest mistake can be fatal," he said.

"For example, a very dangerous moment is when you come out of the isolation unit you take off your protective gear, you are full of sweat and so on and you take off your glasses and do like this - and that can be the end."

Professor Piot said that he was not surprised by the case of the nurse in Madrid and expects more cases in Europe and the US, although he does not expect to see the illness spread as rapidly as it has in Africa.

bbc

Ebola virus disease (EVD)

Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage
Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva
Fatality rate can reach 90% - but current outbreak has mortality rate of about 70%
Incubation period is two to 21 days
There is no proven vaccine or cure
Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery
Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus's natural host

[Newfie]

Keeping in line with the thread topic, it seems dogs (mans best friend) can carry ebola and be asymptomatic.

See 2005 CDC paper.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/3/pdfs/04-0981.pdf

[Cid_Yama]

From the above research paper.

We observed that some dogs ate fresh remains of Ebola virus–infected dead animals brought back to the villages, and that others licked vomit from Ebola virus–infected patients. Although dogs can be asymptomatically infected, they may excrete infectious viral particles in urine, feces, and saliva for a short period before virus clearance, as observed experimentally in other animals. Given the frequency of contact between humans and domestic dogs, canine Ebola infection must be considered as a potential risk factor for human infection and virus spread.

Human infection could occur through licking, biting, or grooming. Asymptomatically infected dogs could be a potential source of human Ebola outbreaks and of virus spread during human outbreaks, which could explain some epidemiologically unrelated human cases.

Dogs might also be a source of human Ebola outbreaks, such as the 1976 Yambuku outbreaks in Democratic Republic of Congo (19), the 1995 Kikwit out-break, some outbreaks that occurred in 1996 and 2004 in Gabon and Republic of Congo (5), and the 1976 (6), 1979 (20), and 2004 (21) outbreaks in Sudan, the sources of which are still unknown.

Together, these findings strongly suggest that dogs should be taken into consideration during the management of human Ebola outbreaks.

Great, just what we need in the South, where they would shoot a family member before they would shoot their dog.

Expect strong resistance in a pandemic in the South. You would be surprised at the kind of direct contact these people have with their animals.

[Graeme]

Global response to Ebola has ‘failed miserably’, says World Bank chief

The president of the World Bank, Jim Kim, admitted on Wednesday that the international community had “failed miserably” in its response to the Ebola virus that has killed more than 3,800 people in west Africa and warned that the crisis now affecting Spain and the US was going to get much worse.

Amid signs that western governments were being forced to take the risks of a global pandemic more seriously, Kim said he wanted them to back a new $20bn (£12bn) global health fund that would be able to react instantly to emergencies.

“It’s late. It’s really late,” he said in an interview with the Guardian before the annual meeting of the Washington-based organisation this weekend.

“We should have done so many things. Healthcare systems should have been built. There should have been monitoring when the first cases were reported. There should have been an organised response.”

Kim’s warning that the global community was still not “moving fast enough” came as the Ebola virus claimed its first victim in the US and news of a case in Spain sent shares in travel and airline companies tumbling on stock exchanges.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the number of deaths from Ebola in west Africa now stood at 3,879 with no evidence that the epidemic was being brought under control.

theguardian

[Cid_Yama]

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government's massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. "Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here."

If Ebola were to mutate on its path from human to human, said Russell and other scientists, its virulence might wane — or it might spread in ways not observed during past outbreaks, which were stopped after transmission among just two to three people, before the virus had a greater chance to evolve. The present outbreak in West Africa has killed approximately 3,800 people, and there is no medical cure for Ebola.

"I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Russell said. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man.... God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't."

CDC officials also say that asymptomatic patients cannot spread Ebola. This assumption is crucial for assessing how many people are at risk of getting the disease. Yet diagnosing a symptom can depend on subjective understandings of what constitutes a symptom, and some may not be easily recognizable. Is a person mildly fatigued because of short sleep the night before a flight — or because of the early onset of disease?

Moreover, said some public health specialists, there is no proof that a person infected — but who lacks symptoms — could not spread the virus to others.

"It's really unclear," said Michael Osterholm, a public health scientist at the University of Minnesota who recently served on the U.S. government's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. "None of us know."

Russell, who oversaw the Army's research on Ebola, said he found the epidemiological data unconvincing.

"The definition of 'symptomatic' is a little difficult to deal with," he said. "It may be generally true that patients aren't excreting very much virus until they become ill, but to say that we know the course of [the virus' entry into the bloodstream] and the course of when a virus appears in the various secretions, I think, is premature."

I read that as, they are excreting SOME virus before they are symptomatic.

Individuals who have flown recently from one or more of the affected countries suggested that travelers could easily subvert the screening procedures — and might have incentive to do so: Compared with the depleted medical resources in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the prospect of hospital care in the U.S. may offer an Ebola-exposed person the only chance to survive.

A person could pass body temperature checks performed at the airports by taking ibuprofen or any common analgesic. And prospective passengers have much to fear from identifying themselves as sick, said Kim Beer, a resident of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, who is working to get medical supplies into the country to cope with Ebola.

"It is highly unlikely that someone would acknowledge having a fever, or simply feeling unwell," Beer said via email. "Not only will they probably not get on the flight — they may even be taken to/required to go to a 'holding facility' where they would have to stay for days until it is confirmed that it is not caused by Ebola. That is just about the last place one would want to go."

Finally, some also question the official assertion that Ebola cannot be transmitted through the air. In late 1989, virus researcher Charles L. Bailey supervised the government's response to an outbreak of Ebola among several dozen rhesus monkeys housed for research in Reston, Va., a suburb of Washington.

Peters, Russell and Bailey, who in 1989 was deputy commander for research of the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, in Frederick, Md., said the primates in Reston had appeared to spread Ebola to other monkeys through their breath.

"Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing — some sort of aerosol movement," Bailey said. "They were dying and spreading it so quickly from cage to cage. We finally came to the conclusion that the best action was to euthanize them all."

What Bailey learned from the episode informs his suspicion that the current strain of Ebola afflicting humans might be spread through tiny liquid droplets propelled into the air by coughing or sneezing. Unqualified assurances that Ebola is not spread through the air, Bailey said, are "misleading."

It is an Ebola outbreak like none seen before, jumping from the bush to urban areas, giving the virus more opportunities to evolve as it passes through multiple human hosts.

Dr. C.J. Peters, who led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

link

Like in airplane cabins where the air is circulated throughout the cabin.

[dissident]

There is nothing surprising about spread through the air. If you are in some radius of an asymptomatic carrier who sneezes you have just inhaled liquid aerosol bearing the virus. The only way there could be no infection via the air pathway is if there was zero virus in the lungs of the carrier. This is not how the world works.

[Graeme]

How you can and can't get Ebola

Here are the facts about how Ebola spreads, as outlined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other official bodies.

You cannot get Ebola through the air

Ebola is not an airborne disease like influenza or chicken pox, and the WHO has categorically said reports suggesting that Ebola has mutated and become airborne are false.

"Airborne spread among humans implies inhalation of an infectious dose of virus from a suspended cloud of small dried droplets," it says.

"This mode of transmission has not been observed during extensive studies of the Ebola virus over several decades."

You cannot get Ebola through water

Ebola does not contaminate water supplies like cholera or dysentery do.

You cannot get Ebola from someone who is not already sick

You cannot get Ebola from mosquitos

You cannot get Ebola from properly cooked food

You can get Ebola from direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infectious person

You can get Ebola from touching an infected surface

You can (theoretically) get Ebola if an infectious person sneezes on you

You can get Ebola from infected wild animals

abc

[Beery1]

While scientists are pretty sure Ebola only spreads through contact with bodily fluids, the fact is, no one really knows all the ways Ebola is transmitted from person to person, so any pronouncements on ways you definitely CAN'T get Ebola are mere conjecture. The fact is, Ebola is a nasty disease and if it's around, people who value their lives should act as if it's airborne. It can't hurt to be "too careful".

In practice, in areas where Ebola is rampant, it may as well be airborne, because the natural humidity levels tend to give the virus longer-term survivability. Combine that with humans' natural tendency to absent-mindedly touch stuff and then rub their eyes, or to eat with their hands without washing first, and you have a problem.

In short, whether the virus is airborne or not is not really the issue. The problem is, humans are really bad at keeping what's on their hands from getting inside their bodies. That's never going to change, and it's true for everyone, even doctors and nurses who are trained to be super-careful. That's why it's important to ignore platitudes about how we're all safe, and that's why it's important to be as careful as possible when faced with any disease that has over a 50% mortality rate.

[Graeme]

Ebola Virus: Texas Health Worker Tests Positive, CDC Confirms

A health-care worker who cared for the Ebola patient who died last week in Dallas has tested positive for the disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Sunday afternoon, in what is likely to have been the first known transmission in the U.S.

The worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas reported a low-grade fever Friday night and was isolated, the health department said. A blood sample tested positive at the state public-health laboratory in Austin late Saturday, and a confirmatory test was conducted by the CDC in Atlanta.

The health-care worker is believed to be a nurse, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The person was considered to be at low risk for contracting the disease, but was one of 18 hospital staff members who were told to check their temperatures twice daily. It was during one such check that the health-care worker discovered a fever, reported it to the hospital, and was isolated within 90 minutes of the fever check, officials said.

The case would become the first known transmission of Ebola in the U.S. and the second person to be diagnosed with the disease in the U.S. It underscores the risks to health-care workers who care for Ebola patients and the need for hospitals to be meticulous about infection-control procedures. A nurse’s aide in Spain was also infected after caring for a priest who died of the disease.

wsj

[vtsnowedin]

So Ebola is here and now and it is clear that no one has a firm idea of how it will play out. Estimates range from final death counts of less then 20,000 all the way up to a doomsday number of 3.5 Billion. This thread is for your estimates of what the final death count will be and what is perhaps more interesting what that result will do to the economy and your personnel situation. Will this bring the worlds economy to a standstill. Will imports become a thing of the past? Do you have preparations in place that will allow you to isolate your self and your family members long enough for this plaque to pass you by when it comes to your neighbor hood? What else might you need to do in the near future. Nothing? the government will handle it and they know what they are doing. Or Get in the bunker >!! the world as we know it has ended? Or something in between.
I'm still thinking about my answers to those questions so feel free to put out your current ideas then modify them as events progress.

[dissident]

How you can and can't get Ebola

Here are the facts about how Ebola spreads, as outlined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other official bodies.

You cannot get Ebola through the air

Ebola is not an airborne disease like influenza or chicken pox, and the WHO has categorically said reports suggesting that Ebola has mutated and become airborne are false.

"Airborne spread among humans implies inhalation of an infectious dose of virus from a suspended cloud of small dried droplets," it says.

BS detector has just exploded.

WTF, is a "dried droplet"? It is a physically nonsensical construct of bureaucratic drivel.

Some important aspects:

1) Dessicated virii are exposed to oxidation and the RNA/DNA core can be damaged beyond repair if there is enough exposure to oxygen. The key here is that drying an ebola virus, HIV, etc, does not instantly kill it. But it seems the Ebola virus is not resistant to prolonged dessication.

2) The lifetime of liquid droplets (e.g. aerosol from a sneeze) in air depends on relative humidity and is clearly not something that is measured in femtoseconds. So if I sit beside an Ebola carrier as he sneezes, I have plenty of time to inhale the LIQUID aerosol from his sneeze.

3) The above imply that the WTO effort at fobbing off risk of infection via air is total and utter rubbish.