Ebola Could Be In U K In 3 Weeks

[ChillDoubt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/05/us-health-ebola-spread-idUSKCN0HU0C920141005

A sobering thought.

Apologies for being the harbinger of doom but what with the onset of winter shortly and the yearly inevitable fight against flu I'm just wondering if our NHS will be able to cope.

[Zacs-Master]

With only one place in the country to treat sufferers (victims?) an epidemic would be very worrying. Having said that, do you remember the early 80s headlines predicting that 80% (I may have the figure wrong but it was along those lines) of the world would have Aids by the year 2000?

[atalanta]

Not for the first time I am glad I live in a backwater in the countryside with only very rare visits to big cities, cinemas, festivals or other mass gatherings.

[mushroom25]

at present there's still no airborne mutation of the virus, so it's still relatively difficult for it to transmit into the general population - the fact that there's been no infection spike in dallas, or along that victim's journey path bear this out. it's right to be vigilant but for now it's only those that have direct contact with the infection that are at high risk.

[anotheoldgit]

At the moment we seem to have little control of our borders to prevent criminals coming in, so we should certainly step up our security to make sure that no one from these African areas are allowed into the UK.

Treat it the same as we did against the risk of rabies entering the country and that was to quarantine, draconian methods maybe, but what is the alternative?

[youngmafbog]

Yes, it will be.

Will we do anything to attempt stop it like border control; No

[jim360]

Despite the escalation of the crisis I don't think we need to worry about Border control just yet, still. The overwhelming majority of cases that the UK/ US will see are going to be due to people returning from those countries, and the chance of the disease spreading beyond those initial patients are low. Again, the conditions just aren't here for a major outbreak.

As a promising example of this, the first case in Senegal was announced at the end of August; it's now October, and there remains just the single case (it spiked to 3 for a week before returning to just 1, perhaps because the two extra cases were misreported). This supports the idea that we can reasonably expect to easily contain any Ebola cases that arrive here.

[Sqad]

Well, JIm, a well reasoned post and the only thing that you have missed out is the non scientific phrase..." with luck."

[Hypognosis]

Two UK citizens flew to Macedonia; neither have been to Africa; one has died - supposedly of Ebola - the other is quarantined, as is their hotel.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ebola-british-national-dies-of-deadly-virus-in-macedonia-9785759.html