Should We Be Concerned?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2710285/Ebola-test-feverish-man-flew-Britain-West-Africa-doctors-red-alert-deadly-virus.html

/// Liberia closed most of its border crossings on Sunday and Nigeria’s airports and borders have been on full alert since Friday. ///

Should we also consider closing our borders, or at least put a halt to the passage of persons from this part of Africa?

We seem more concerned about the spread of rabies in this country, than this disease which kills 90 per cent of victims.

[Sqad]

slaney.....YES....your point is well taken BUT initially the symptoms may well not be obvious.....a little off colour for a couple of days, a mild temperature, but if you were a "hooker" not bad enough to put you off a "night's work."...............maybe?

[237SJ]

Sqad - while she`s having dinner with you, she`s losing business :-)

[jim360]

Thanks for the endorsement, Sqad. :) I do agree that we shouldn't ignore it, and I think this is probably the thrust of most people's arguments. But there's not yet any cause for serious concern or drastic action as suggested by AOG.

[Sqad]

jim...I agree.

237SJ......naaah!...I pay well.,,;-)

[Sqad]

slaney..

\\\Even if a person exhibits no signs or symptoms of Ebola, he or she can still spread the virus during the Ebola incubation period.\\

http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola/ebola-incubation-period.html

The med "boys" seem to be at odds. WHO clearly have the last say?

[anotheoldgit]

Kromovaracun

/// I don't know why I bother posting on your threads. ///

Yes and the annoying thing is, you do time and time again.

Admit it you are addicted. :0)

[Kromovaracun]

Sqad: after ebola symptoms have manifested, ebola tends to kill the host very quickly. This is a major limiting factor in its spread.

I have no idea what the source of your link is. So, yes, I'm willing to trust the WHO until I have a pressing reason not to.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

/// Who remembers when we were all going to die from SARS? ///

/// And remember swine flu? ///

/// I have checked and I am still very much alive. ///

Obviously you were among the fortunate ones, there were many who were not so fortunate.

Who knows what the future holds?

[slaney]

Sqad I'm not sure how reliable a source emedTV is

I would go with the WHO, and certainly the CDC in Atlanta...
" I want to emphasize that Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms appear."
http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/t0728-ebola.html

[EcclesCake]

AOG, statistically speaking how many is "many"?

[Sqad]

Kromo......LOL.....I knew you would.

\\\after ebola symptoms have manifested, ebola tends to kill the host very quickly. This is a major limiting factor in its spread. \\

Depends what you mean by "very quickly"...2 days? 2 weeks? plenty of time for the infection to spread and that is IF the diagnosis is made quickly.........which it often isn't.

AOG...says "Should we be concerned?"

I clearly am, but i presume you are not. That is fair enough.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

/// So unless you are waiting at Heathrow to have unprotected sex with someone who has just flown in from one of the regions in Nigeria - I would say that your cause for concern should be fairly low. ///

Why just unprotected sex? Perhaps you could catch it off toilet seats. :0)

[ChillDoubt]

Just reading on the BBC site, the Foreign Secretary saying that the NHS could cope with such an outbreak here.

Shouldn't that be the Health Secretary's call?

[sp1814]

AOG

Ebola cannot be caught off toilet seats, unless you use the toilet immediately after an infected person (pathogens don't tell to have a long 'half life' outside the human body) and the previous occupant's body fluid come into direct contact with an open wound on your body.

Regarding SARS and swine flu. No - I wasn't one of the lucky ones. I was simply one of the ones who wasn't affected.

To put this into context, I was indeed one of the lucky ones who wasn't injured or killed in the 7/7 attacks. I decided to go into work early that day, and arrived at Kings Cross station earlier than I would normally have.

That makes me 'lucky'.

However the context in which you think I'm 'lucky' regarding swine flu and SARS is the same kind of lucky that a sheep crofter working in north Wales on 7/7 had in avoiding.

Not luck at all really.

[Peter Pedant]

// and back to his room where they have intercourse. if she is in the prodromal phase of Ebola and this could last up to 3-4 weeks, /// Sqad

hur hur hur - lucky man.... oh...I see the intercourse doesnt last for four weeks ? oh OK

Really the only person to write a modicum of sense on this thread is Slaney. Well done S. -

Otherwise yes you should be concerned - for all the dead in Liberia.

Interesting virus tho - filiform, very small and member of the ss(-)RNA viruses - wow. Single strand (negative) RNA. It replicates and doesnt bother to go thro a DNA phase ( therefore no reverse transcriptase needed ). Good virological article in Wiki.

If you look at the papers or indeed wiki it is obvious that on this outbreak the case-fatality ration is 50% - 1200 cases and 600 dead.

The disease is spread by being puked over, spat at, or pooed at.
and so moon suits are a good idea and the virus is killed by chlorine water - now where have I heard that before ? [Semmelweiss]

rabies by the way is more lethal than this one rabies has had as many as 3 survivors over the centuries....

[naomi24]

Yes, we should be concerned. Tuberculosis was all but eradicated in this country until fairly recently. The NHS website says this.

//Before antibiotics were introduced, TB was a major health problem in the UK. Nowadays, the condition is much less common. However, in the last 20 years TB cases have gradually increased, particularly among ethnic minority communities who are originally from places where TB is more common.

In 2011, 8,963 cases of TB were reported in the UK. Of these, more than 6,000 of these cases affected people who were born outside the UK.//

[sp1814]

Exactly how should we 'be concerned'?

What practical things can we do in our efforts to be concerned?

[naomi24]

sp, I don't have the answers - but we should be concerned. Or do you think we should ignore it?

[sp1814]

Somewhere in between.

I genuinely want to know why people (like AOG and you) mean by 'be concerned'.

I assume that you are concerned, or are planning on being concerned, but in practical terms - does that mean you're going to change your behaviour in any way?

[sp1814]

And to answer your question- no, I do not think we should ignore the Ebola crisis. This is the deadliest outbreak of Ebola yet. It has a high fatality rate (50 - 70%) and 670 people have died in West Africa so far this year.

However, I'm going to listen to the experts who say that there is only a very small chance of coming here.

But I'm pleased that AOG has raised this - have been looking at what these health workers are going through treating victims.

I am truly amazed by their dedication.

It makes my life (and those of every I know) seem incredibly privileged.

Perhaps we take that for granted.