Ebola outbreak, and other potential epidemics

Post by **adam2** » 08 Sep 2014, 19:43

Standuble wrote:----------------------------------------

Addendum: I do have an outstanding question: What are the odds of a lethal ebola strain surviving in Europe or America via the native bat populations? Could they become endemic in the developed world as a result?

I do not know if ebola could become endemic in European or American bat populations, but would suggest that if it did become endemic that this should be of little consequence.

There is no widespread tradition of eating bats in the UK or USA and therefore little risk of infected bats infecting humans.
EATING the bats is probably fairly low risk if they are thoroughly cooked, but the catching and killing of them seems risky as blood would be spilled, and the eating of improperly cooked animals is also risky.

If an infected bat bit a human, I presume that the disease could spread, but bat bites are very rare, and most people fear bats and therefore avoid them.

Mean Mr Mustard · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard** » 08 Sep 2014, 19:46

Hi Steve

You look like you are very well versed here. Have you studied epidemiology? Not entirely sure about your distinction between societies and populations, unless you mean someone like this here Western type 1 diabetic, (who, through being born at the right place and time - (forty years before the height of Mr Hubbert's Peak) happens to be able to live for now on borrowed time, courtesy of industrial society supply chains. As a former disaster planner too, knowing well to maintain a stock of insulin supplies, not heeding the NHS 'just in time' 'don't stockpile' exhortations...

Food and loo rolls etc, likewise - be that for financial collapse, floods, or the next pandemic English government-ordered three days indoors. Or the wrong kind of snow. That'll soon be here - I just saw a festive menu advertised on a pub roadsign...

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 08 Sep 2014, 19:57

Hi Mr M. No, No I'm not an epidemiologist by education or work experience. My interest is entirely amateur. My degree was in psychology, specialising in the evolutionary basis of behaviour. Particularly, social behaviour. Specifically, something called kin-selected altruism and its evolutionary origin. Consequently, I do have an interest in all things evolutionary and there is some small bleed over from my degree in terms of a very broad (and shallow) understanding of epidemiology. Though not much.

Mean Mr Mustard · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard** » 08 Sep 2014, 20:30

I know someone who did get a BSc (Hons) in epidemiology. And he was a disaster planner too. And when the 2009 bird flu came along, producing exponential and sigmoid curve projections, the lot, he knew his former ignorant employer would disregard all that and give him a Good Stiff Ignoring. They got away with it that time...

That's the problem with adopting the precautionary principle. Either alarmist doomsayer, or prophetic but ignored... by which time it's too late...

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 08 Sep 2014, 21:16

I'd rate bird flu as a much greater threat to civilisation as we know it.

On bat's, slightly tangentially this page may be of interest regarding our own bats and rabies. http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/-bats_and_rabies-1099.html

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 08 Sep 2014, 21:26

An article pointing out that the greater the exponent in the growth, the more under-reported the mortality figures. A bit worrying that biologists only get statistics and not real maths.

http://news.sciencemag.org/africa/2014/ ... vival-rate

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 08 Sep 2014, 22:45

Standuble wrote:I can't see the lethal strains going into decline for as long as its easy for infected travellers to travel all across the globe. There are too many people who are too easy to infect for the lethality to become a detrimental trait any time soon. At best it would only co-exist with non-lethal strains for now.

I was going to comment about the Sierra Leone three-day lock down but it may have already been mentioned.

Addendum: I do have an outstanding question: What are the odds of a lethal ebola strain surviving in Europe or America via the native bat populations?

Difficult to say, because of the current confusion over the evoluionary history of the natural host, which are "megabats" - fruit bats. Fruit bats, it appears, aren't actually bats at all. They are primitive primates, more closely related to humans than true bats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_primate_hypothesis

Or at least, so the theory goes. It's controversial. Safer to say that we aren't entirely sure about the evolutionary history of megabats, but it looks like they evolved flight independently of true bats.

Therefore, there is no particular reason to expect European or north American bats to be natural hosts.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 08 Sep 2014, 23:29

Well I never knew that!

But is it not also true that, for parasites, it is easier to hop from species to species if the 2 hosts are more closely related? Which is, in this case worrying.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 08 Sep 2014, 23:34

RenewableCandy wrote:Well I never knew that!

But is it not also true that, for parasites, it is easier to hop from species to species if the 2 hosts are more closely related? Which is, in this case worrying.

It's already "hopped" to humans. That bat has flown.

Post by **adam2** » 10 Sep 2014, 08:20

More doom here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29136594

"spreading like wildfire"
"threat to national existence"

Not looking good.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 10 Sep 2014, 10:42

adam2 wrote:More doom here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29136594

"spreading like wildfire"
"threat to national existence"

Not looking good.

"America is going to provide 25 beds...."

Talk about far too little, far too late. By the time those 25 beds are available, they're going to need 250. Or maybe 2,500.

I think we can now safely say that this outbreak is never going to be controlled. This was the first time ebola got a serious foothold in a major city, and it turns out that once was all it needed.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 10 Sep 2014, 14:16

UndercoverElephant wrote:"America is going to provide 25 beds..

Our response of 62 beds isn't much better but considering the difference in size ours is better than the US. But then we probably have more to lose than the US because refugees from the Ebola crisis are much more likely to come to the UK than the US. Our health service is effectively free to allcomers!

Mean Mr Mustard · Post by **Mean Mr Mustard** » 11 Sep 2014, 21:24

Piot, who has worked for the UN and World Health Organisation, said the US and UK efforts were good, but not good enough. "It's all going far too slow; I think there's still no sense that this is an absolute emergency and catastrophe," he said.

Describing the "formidable management challenge" that lies ahead, he said the biggest question for him was what would happen if the disease spread to "megacities" in Nigeria, where there have already been seven deaths from 19 confirmed cases.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014 ... peter-piot

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 12 Sep 2014, 00:43

big numbers now being posted - estimates of 100,000 to 270,000 by the end of the year.

Also an unrelated (?) breakout in the Congo with 35 infected.

Shit.

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 12 Sep 2014, 01:10

Make that 59 in Congo with 32 deaths.....