Ebola outbreak, and other potential epidemics

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 30 Sep 2014, 15:45

Conference now on. Video stream is having problems - go to audio only.
http://www.odi.org/events/4033-ebola-more-can-be-done

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 30 Sep 2014, 17:01

A slide illustrating some of the economic consequence already seen:

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 30 Sep 2014, 17:14

In days of yore (like the 1990s) a lot of Chinese universities hosted African students for reason of being communist and wanting to help poorer countries: I actually met several while I was there. This is only one example of a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between China and parts of Africa: more recently, China is setting up businesses there and of course "buying" land.

One wonders at the "quarantine" implications of all this economic activity.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 30 Sep 2014, 18:01

Take home messages, there are some positive glimmers. With prompt and good intervention death rates can go down to 20%. A lot of support is being mobilised.

However, between the support that is being mobilised and the need, there is a horrendous gulf, a mismatch of numbers of at least an order of magnitude. Plans are in motion for increasing treatment beds by many hundreds. The need is for many thousands.

Médecins san Frontières, who are brilliant, asked for vastly more support last March and have generally been ignored until recently. That a private NGO has been left carrying the can is an indictment on the global community.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 30 Sep 2014, 21:46

There are reports on twitter that the first case of ebola in the US is about to be confirmed.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 30 Sep 2014, 21:50

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102037055?__sour ... =yahoonews

CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States.

The CDC will host a press conference at its Atlanta headquarters at 5:30 p.m., ET.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas officials said in a statement earlier Monday that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in "strict isolation" due to the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 30 Sep 2014, 21:52

And the country making the biggest contribution to help?

Cuba - 461 medical staff.

The single confirmed case has resulted in a twitter-storm from USA suggesting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have arrived in Texas.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 30 Sep 2014, 22:33

nexus wrote:http://www.cnbc.com/id/102037055?__sour ... =yahoonews

CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in US

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States.

The CDC will host a press conference at its Atlanta headquarters at 5:30 p.m., ET.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas officials said in a statement earlier Monday that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in "strict isolation" due to the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.

So this person has been on the loose in Texas, and presumably there is a significant risk that other people are infected. Now we get to find out what happens when ebola arrives in the western world.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 01 Oct 2014, 06:17

BBC reports he was in us for 4 days before showing symptoms, and another 4 days before going to hospital. That is 4 days to infect other people. That will almost certainly be enough to infect immediate family. He went to hospital and was misdiagnosed and sent home!

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 01 Oct 2014, 07:12

I am sure they will get on top of any small outbreak in the US. It is large numbers that will drain the system.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 01 Oct 2014, 07:41

PS_RalphW wrote:BBC reports he was in us for 4 days before showing symptoms, and another 4 days before going to hospital. That is 4 days to infect other people. That will almost certainly be enough to infect immediate family. He went to hospital and was misdiagnosed and sent home!

Yes, I heard on R4 that they are trying to trace all of the people he was in contact with in Dallas for those four days.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 01 Oct 2014, 09:43

I would give this case a better than 50% chance of going out of control.

I do not know the details, but my fear is that the victim went to treatment centre when highly contagious, and was turned away when he was too frightened to say he had traveled from Liberia. I do not know how many people he had direct contact with, how many door handles and other surfaces he touched, how long he sat in an open waiting room with complete strangers, etc.

If the medic he saw had made the connection they could have put the facility on lockdown, got names and addresses of everyone in the building and put a lid on this. (S)he missed it, so now there are now dozens or hundreds of untracable potential carriers. Public announcements of all potential contacts being traced are BS.

Even if we break lucky this time, this will happen again, and may have already happened , somewhere else in the world in the coming months.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 01 Oct 2014, 10:13

This is exactly why I have said that this is the start of a worldwide pandemic. The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

If folks feel otherwise, I am sorry to say you are kidding yourselves as it cannot be controlled in my opinion, unless there is a complete lockdown of all countries with the disease.

As Ralph said even if we get lucky this time, there will be more times, in fact many more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29437070

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 01 Oct 2014, 10:18

Hold your horses!!!

It's not on the loose in the US yet. This is the (first) test case. We know the index case has been in contact with people, and we now get to find out whether or not it is actually possible to contain it once you've found the index case.

I think it is still likely this will be stopped before it gets out of control. If it doesn't then I'll agree with the assessment that we're looking at a worldwide pandemic, at least until the development of an effective vaccine.

We've got about two to three months before we get an answer.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 01 Oct 2014, 10:26

In two to three months it could be in every country in the world UE. That's how our global system works - many tens of thousands of people travelling country to country every single day. Maybe we could get lucky this time - I doubt it. How won't there be many more times?