Ebola: "Out of Control in West Africa"

[Old Dog New Trick]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

If bodily fluids transmit it, why can mosquitos not be a vector?

TR

Good question, IIRC Mosquitos are not a susceptible host/carrier of the virus. Also I have not heard that domestic animals have been susceptable as hosts. So just bats and humans and only the humans die far as I can remember.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

If bodily fluids transmit it, why can mosquitos not be a vector?

Direct contact with the host - mosquitoes are not the natural host of ebola.

I'm glad I'm not in Bomi Hills.

Richard

[T-Rock]

Two folks in our area contracted Ebola who were working with Samaritans Purse. I'm certain they were using and were trained in standard precautions at a minimum... One was a physician.

As open as this POTUS has allowed our borders to be, it's not too far fetched an idea to imagine someone who has the determination to strap on a suicide vest, purposely infect themselves, and fly to this country via South America...

. Open Borders Invite Threat Of Ebola Terrorism

War On Terror: As the Ebola disease spreads in Africa and detainees from that continent are apprehended, the question must be asked: What if terrorists already willing to die try to bring the disease across our porous southern border?

The Ebola outbreak that has killed at least 672 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone could land in the U.S., according to John O'Connor, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's true," he says, "that anyone with an illness is just one plane ride away from coming to the U.S." Indeed, a Liberian man infected with Ebola boarded a plane and brought the disease to Lagos, Nigeria, Africa's largest city, with 21 million people.

But what if in the future it's no accident? Nigeria is the home of Boko Haram. The Islamic terrorist group ISIL has long been recruiting terrorists in the West and is known to have members with Western, even American, passports.

Deliberately spreading the disease to the U.S. might not even require a plane ride, and it's possibile that terrorists already willing to strap bombs to their bodies might just as willingly get infected and pay a coyote to get them across our open southern border.

We remember the 9/11 Commission saying that terrorist attack was due in part to our lack of imagination. We couldn't imagine young Middle Eastern males learning to fly, but not land, passenger jets as part of a plan to fly them into skyscrapers.

The spreading of Ebola to the U.S. could be intentional, given the virus' relatively long incubation period of up to three weeks without symptoms, and no shortage of terrorists willing to die for their cause. It would be easy for an infected terrorist to slip in among the OTMs (Other Than Mexican) who have also been crossing our border.

"Central Americans are not the only ones being smuggled through Mexico to the United States," said a 2012 report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, a fact regularly reported by the U.S. Border Patrol.

"Irregular migrants from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia), as well as South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, India), China and other African and Asian states are being smuggled through Central America."

Albert Spratte, a spokesman for Local 3307 of the National Border Patrol Council, has repeatedly noted how the Rio Grande is being crossed by more than just Central Americans, including individuals from Africa. On one weekend, a group of Chinese females was apprehended.

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a preventive medicine specialist, told Breitbart News recently that the dispersal of illegal aliens, including unaccompanied minors, throughout the U.S. without proper medical screening "is the ideal condition for a viral outbreak."

"A public health crisis, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime, is looming," Vliet wrote recently for World Net Daily. "Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the most serious risk, but even diseases like measles can cause severe complications and death in older or immunocompromised patients." And possibly Ebola?

"There's nothing to prevent someone traveling here asymptomatically during the incubation period," said ABC News' chief health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director of the CDC during the swine flu outbreak.

GlobalSecurity.org says that there is evidence that the former Soviet Union's biological weapons program researched and weaponized the Ebola virus — and that Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo reportedly sent members to Zaire during an outbreak to harvest the virus. So its use as a bioterror weapon is not a new idea.

The prospect of terrorists hacking their way through the Mall of America or LAX carrying a weaponized container of the Ebola virus is a very real possibility unless we secure our borders and let in only the invited — and the healthy.



http://news.investors.com/ibd-editor...sts.htm?p=full

[Paslode]

Here's an interesting twist from Mr. Jones.....

Disease, natural disaster, and man-made crises are routinely exploited by government as pretexts to enlarge and extend its power and reach. The state and its propaganda media thrive on one manufactured crisis after another as part of a systematic effort to ramp up the police state. The goal is not protection of the people. It is an all-encompassing surveillance state with a militarized component designed not to save us from evil terrorists or scary diseases, but control the population and maintain through fear and violence its political monopoly.

Getting away from the conspiracy, Jones lays out some potential facts...

It is difficult to contract the deadly viral disease Ebola.

In order to get it, you have to be in direct contact with blood and other body fluids from an infected person or animal. Aerosol transmission is not possible. The possibility of widespread transmission is extremely low due to a high fatality rate and the remote areas where infections usually occur.

As Jon Rappoport told Alex Jones on Thursday, the death rate from Ebola is nearly infinitesimal when compared to seasonal flu, which kills between three and five million people every year. Like previous “pandemic” diseases like Swine Flu and West Nile, Ebola is being exploited and exaggerated as part of a psychological operation by government.

http://www.infowars.com/dont-fear-ebola-fear-the-state/

I don't know what is fact, so I did some quick searching from 'trusted' sources.....


DHHS States:

Influenza, or flu, is a contagious respiratory illness caused by viruses. Flu kills more than 36,000 Americans each year and afflicts between 5 and 20 percent of the U.S. population, according to Federal estimates. Experts endorse vaccinations through November and December since most flu activity occurs during January or subsequent months of most years.

The CDC says:

CDC estimates that from the 1976-1977 season to the 2006-2007 flu season, flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease...ted_deaths.htm

WHO states that there have been 1334 deaths associated to Ebola from 1976 through 2012

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/


So what is more dangerous Ebola or Influenza?

[Trapper John]

Paslode- exactly correct. On a population scale Influenza is far more serious. However, on an individual basis, Ebola's 60% -90% mortality rate and the manner of death (bleeding to death) has a very significant psychological impact. Just watch this thread as it goes off the rails if you don't believe me. You'd think we are facing the Zombie Apocalypse.

[DIYPatriot]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

You'd think we are facing the Zombie Apocalypse.

No kidding...I know a guy that is a major conspiracy theorist and he's so fun to mess with. Back when the CDC added their Zombie Preparedness marketing campaign to their website, I sent him the link and told him that it was for real and that it was about to hit the fan. His reply? "I f@cking knew it!!!"

Back to the thread, this same acquaintance was up in arms when he found out that the infected American doctor was making his way back to the states. He firmly believes that it is an attempt by the government to create a large scale epidemic so they can do something sinister without the public's knowledge. And no - he is not a friend. He's a neighbor and I love to mess with him. Especially when he sees me reloading in my garage or dehydrating food or canning it. He honestly thinks that I know something is about to go down and that it has nothing to do with me being resourceful, thrifty and old fashioned.

[Old Dog New Trick]

Remember Influenza vs. Ebola -

Method of transmission and state of person. Deaths from influenza are mainly attributed to the elderly and very young children who have weakened or not fully developed immune systems. Ebola kills otherwise healthy people. While transmission rates are significantly higher with the flu and many people treat their symptoms themselves at home and continue to spread the virus during daily contact with others in confined spaces. Ebola tends to have a nearly 100% transmission rate to anyone in contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person - even after death of the host.

We have vaccines to mitigate the effects of influenza and yet some people still die from it. Mostly because they don't get immunized or don't recognize the threat until it's too late. Far as I know, only the lucky survive Ebola even when early identification and symptomatic treatment is given.

[Trapper John]

Far as I know, only the lucky survive Ebola even when early identification and symptomatic treatment is given.

Interesting that you brought that point up, ODNT. When we look at key biomarkers in the blood of EBOLA survivors it looks as if these survivors had a co-infection on board at the time of infection with EBOLA. Specifically, a parasitic infection IMO. The co-infection would have conferred a pre-infection activated innate immune response that would have reduced or eliminated infecting EBOLA virus. Incidentally, I seem to recall a similar effect and resistance to HIV infection.

My advice to you guys worrying about getting an EBOLA infection, rub some dirt in it.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

Interesting that you brought that point up, ODNT. When we look at key biomarkers in the blood of EBOLA survivors it looks as if these survivors had a co-infection on board at the time of infection with EBOLA. Specifically, a parasitic infection IMO. The co-infection would have conferred a pre-infection activated innate immune response that would have reduced or eliminated infecting EBOLA virus. Incidentally, I seem to recall a similar effect and resistance to HIV infection.

My advice to you guys worrying about getting an EBOLA infection, rub some dirt in it.

Interesting.

Trap,
One thing that I'd question is, where Ebola is normally found, those people are pretty much living in "the dirt." They don't have the best sanitation facilities and their kids, when young (ie growing up) usually play in the dirt, not like back here where if little Johnny or Susie want to play at the park they need to be wearing a "crash helmet", knee pads, elbow pads, and are slathered in some sort of antibacterial ointment, hell, they're this close from having to wear a full body condom just to play in the front yard now-a-days.

So it would reason that the West African people who are in the Ebola "hot zone(s)" would have that immune system "up and running" to help fight off the virus, to I believe what you are referring to.

They just really have to learn to stop eating infected fruit bats and monkeys, or what ever else it is they do with monkeys that would warrant them catching the disease.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

I seen a program once that talked about the bubonic plague in western Europ that killed so many people. Long story short they looked into the genetics of survivors and found they had a higher resistance to and infection. (I know that is not exactly right but you get the idea) Has this been explored with the ebola?

Bringing up the point of parasitic infection. I read/heard somewhere they found people with intestinal parasites have lower rate of diverticulitis and other intestinal problems, food allergies etc. The point was perhaps we are meant to have some types of intestinal parasite for proper body function like the intestinal bacteria. Is that true and what do you know about it.?

That does make some sense, having an intestinal parasite help fight the virus, seeing that the virus usually attacks the soft organs (stomach, liver, intestines, etc.) would seen plausible.

I'd be interested in hearing from our resident experts on this as well.

[Trapper John]

SD & BO- I was being facetious wrt to the 'rub dirt in it" comment, but only somewhat.

The survivors of EBOLA probably had malaria co-infection.

We are, however, supposed to have a variety of bugs on board (commensals and symbiots) to have normal resistance to infections and be generally healthy. That's no news to either of you I am sure.

However, what is new is the notion of modulating the initial (innate) immune response to fight on-going infections or prevent infection from progressing to disease.

If it were me and I had a team mate that I suspected to be infected with EBOLA, I would treat him with multiple doses of a vaccine over 3-5 days- don't really care what vaccine either. BCG vaccine or Freund's Complete Adjuvant would be particularly useful or even Coley's Toxin. Just trying to induce an innate immune response (mimic the biological response of survivors) and hopefully eradicate virus in the process. In fact just about any foreign protein would be better than nothing.

So yeah, rub some dirt in it.

[DJ Urbanovsky]

Not an airborne pathogen, they said?

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20341423

I drew the same conclusion on my own prior to reading that article. If the pathogen exists in an infected host's bodily fluids, and that person sneezes or coughs on you, what are you now covered with? That infected host's bodily fluids, that's what. The virus is transmitted how, again? Bodily fluids, you say?

The two patients that are being transferred to GA for treatment, they were both medical workers, and both had full knowledge of what to do to protect themselves from infection. These were people who knew the risks, supposedly knew what they were doing, and who should have been wearing head to toe protective gear, and yet both were still infected? How did that happen?

You cannot compare this virus to influenza because it isn't influenza. Influenza does not have a mortality rate that is between 50% and 90%. A vaccine for influenza already exists. And, as has been mentioned, influenza does not tend to kill people who are in generally good health.

CDC is issuing advisories telling people not to travel to three African nations. This disease has jumped at least four borders that we know of (not counting countries that are "importing" it on their own). WHO is saying that it is "out of control" in Africa. Meanwhile, other medical authorities are saying "It's not a threat. It's not that transmissible. Air travel is not a big deal." Really? OK. Do you want to share an armrest with that poor fucker on the airplane, breathing his recycled air? Guess what? He has to go use the potty. Does he wash his hands afterward?

How can we afford to confront this with a cavalier attitude? "It's only 600 dead, the flu kills 30,000 each year in the USA" or likening it to that whole zombie meme bullshit is exactly how pandemics start. You don't realize the corn is growing all summer, until suddenly you look up and realize that it's over your head. And then it's too late...

[DDD]

MOO, if you believe everything WHO says, you would never leave your house. I'm not trying to minimize the danger, but just because "Health Care Professionals" are trained in PPEs doesn't mean they PRACTICE them.
Is there a threat? Yes. Is it going to end life as we know it? No.

[DJ Urbanovsky]

I do not disagree. I'm just saying, this isn't something that should be marginalized by likening it to fake things like zombies, or real things, like the flu.

Originally Posted by DDD

MOO, if you believe everything WHO says, you would never leave your house. I'm not trying to minimize the danger, but just because "Health Care Professionals" are trained in PPEs doesn't mean they PRACTICE them.
Is there a threat? Yes. Is it going to end life as we know it? No.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

SD - I was being facetious wrt to the 'rub dirt in it" comment ....

So yeah, rub some dirt in it.

Ohhhh ... you waskly SF medic you. I should have known. I mean someone whose training in treating a femur Fx consists of telling their Pts., "Take a couple of Ibuprofens, drink some water and change your socks", might be a bit facetious.