ebola, anyone else mildly terrified?

[otolith]

Mr Whippy said:

But given thousands of victims each having many billions of virus infected cells over their infection, surely there are going to be many trillions of opportunities for that very rare mutation to occur.

The mutation doesn't only need to happen - the daughter viruses need to succeed in amplifying themselves, escaping that host and infecting a new one. The chance of any one mutated germ line making it out of a victim when they have billions of virus particles in them and only pass the infection on to two or three others is tiny.

[Bill]

It takes two for airborne transmission to occur, we know that mucus membranes are vulnerable to infection but Ebola isn't a respiratory tract infection so victims don't tend to cough and sneeze, and if they did their snot isn't as heavily loaded as other fluids.

It's also really very nasty so people won't be struggling manfully into work.

I haven't had a look yet but there were some nurse union types on the news last night claiming the nurses treating the US patient didn't have much PPE.

[otolith]

Dan_1981 said:

Is it as simple a case as ebola virus bumps into flu virus and before you know it we have "manflu ebola"

Just on that particular point - horizontal gene transfer between species is something that often happens in bacteria, but it's not a common thing in viruses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_trans...

[Mr Whippy]

otolith said:

Mr Whippy said:

But given thousands of victims each having many billions of virus infected cells over their infection, surely there are going to be many trillions of opportunities for that very rare mutation to occur.

The mutation doesn't only need to happen - the daughter viruses need to succeed in amplifying themselves, escaping that host and infecting a new one. The chance of any one mutated germ line making it out of a victim when they have billions of virus particles in them and only pass the infection on to two or three others is tiny.

That's a fair point.

But if that mutation occurs relatively early on then an entire subject may be carrying a large proportion of this ideal mutation that can be transmitted in an airborne fashion.

I won't pretend it's all super simple and straight forward, but it's just nature at it's best.

It doesn't care, or plan, or plot. It just does what it does and if the conditions turn out right then it'll be pretty nasty to behold an airborne version of Ebola... even as noted at 10% mortality rates it'd be round the modern world in a week!

Dave

[XJ Flyer]

IanMorewood said:

Bluebarge said:

My apologies to the nurse. It wasn't her stupidity, it went further up the chain
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11...

Ouch so self monitoring and displaying a slight fever she rings for advice and is told no problems you are still ok to travel. That's 132 lawsuits coming right up unless they all die.

Their defence being that 'they've' been told by 'someone' ( probably WHO ) that the disease supposedly has a higher temperature signature of 100+ as opposed to the less than 100 which she reported.

It is also noticeable how they spin the case with the wording of the report.Which should have said along the lines of health officials misrepresent ( lie about )the symptom level identifiers of an Ebola infected nurse.Resulting in potential further spread of the disease

[otolith]

Yes, the probability of a mutation being passed on depends on when in the amplification of the virus it happens - both because of the influence on the proportion of the virus population which carries it in the host and on the likelihood of it being able to alter the pathogenesis of the disease in such a way that the mutation is selected for (i.e. a mutation which increases the risk of transmission by altering the symptoms will have more opportunity to do so if it gets in early).

[irocfan]

croyde said:

paranoid airbag said:

The grauniad making new grounds in horsehit (warning, clickbait):

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/...

Apparently, we're afraid of people with ebola because they're black. Not because they have ebola as we thought.

I might have to consider extending the sites covered by kittenblock.

Just read that. Is she for fekin' real?

and here we have the modern face of racism - and incidentally why people still resort to it

[croyde]

IanMorewood said:

Really? So the 2 million US troops and 2+ million British empire troops all stayed in France?

Granted but they didn't pop all over the Earth as we do nowadays. Think the US troops went home in ships, plenty of time to realise that everyone has become sick. Even my bank can't grasp how quickly one can get to another country, like the time they stopped my card and told me that someone was trying to use it in France.

Yes it's me you knitwits, trying to get some fuel for my car at 2am in the morning on an empty autoroute

[benjj]

This is actually as interesting as it is terrifying.

[roachcoach]

The last big outbreak I remember was foot and mouth and the government was piss poor at handling that too and that would have been a far easier task as animals aren't usually in denial or crammed into offices and mass transit.

The virus scares me less than the ineptitude and ignorance of governments to handle this in an appropriate fashion.

It's like they don't understand the origin of the recently coined term "going viral".

[traxx]

This is worth a read

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88060/ebola

[pilchardthecat]

traxx said:

This is worth a read

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88060/ebola

Well i've got to the third paragraph, and there are 2 factual inaccuracies already!

"As of Oct 10 2014, the latest outbreak had afflicted 8,376 and killed 4,024 -- a mortality rate of 48%." (Except about 25% of those "afflicted" were still alive and had contracted the disease so recently that they might well still die)

[Stevanos]

Plane isolated in Madrid with passenger onboard displaying symptoms. http://news.sky.com/story/1354341/plane-isolated-i...

[mcgandalf]

According to Sky an Air France plane has been isolated at Madrid Airport after a passenger started displaying 'ebola-like symptoms'.

We really will be screwed when the flu season kicks in, won't we?

[XJ Flyer]

traxx said:

This is worth a read

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88060/ebola

In other words yet more propaganda along the lines that keeping global travel routes open to/from the affected areas in Africa is more important than trying to keep the disease out.All based on the idea that travelling by car is supposedly more dangerous than a level 4 bio hazard with a minimum 50% mortality rate than can be transmitted by nothing more than touching a surface that an infected person has touched.

[Dan_1981]

Stevanos said:

Plane isolated in Madrid with passenger onboard displaying symptoms. http://news.sky.com/story/1354341/plane-isolated-i...

Isolated with the passengers onboard!

Regardless of how hard it is to catch, or anything else - would you want to be on that plane?


There'll be a riot if they hold it there for too long.

[walm]

Dan_1981 said:

There'll be a riot if they hold it there for too long.

Hopefully a bloodless one where people studiously avoid touching each other.
A little bit like the Northern Line.

[mcgandalf]

The passenger is reported to have 'a fever and shivers'.

Unless there is an awful lot we're not being told about here, what are the chances that this passenger does not have mild man flu?

We all get flu.

[Bill]

walm said:

Hopefully a bloodless one where people studiously avoid touching each other.
A little bit like the Northern Line.

The panic is going to cause far more harm to the west than the disease itself.

[anonymous-user]

mcgandalf said:

The passenger is reported to have 'a fever and shivers'.

Unless there is an awful lot we're not being told about here, what are the chances that this passenger does not have mild man flu?

We all get flu.

What is mild man flu?

Doesn't exist