ebola, anyone else mildly terrified?

[funkyrobot]

I'm much more terrified of finding Viagra in a hire car.

[speedy_thrills]

Du1point8 said:

Not too scared when this is available:

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/scientis...

Yoshihiro Kawaoka has effectively created the death of all humanity if his creation is ever released by accident.

It has no known cure and hes caused quite a storm in the last few days by admitting hes created it.

If released its bye bye human race.

Yep. I did that as well...and also didn't publish because of the good of humanity and stuff. You may be familiar with our earlier work however "Bieber fever".

[countachman]

Just read all this then coughed! !! Oh no..........doc...how long have I got?

[Rocksteadyeddie]

My daughter is supposed to be going to Sierra Leonne in a couple of weeks. She's a teacher and spends many of her holidays teaching kids in Africa. Understandably she's concerned...

[countachman]

Just read all this then coughed! !! Oh no..........doc...how long have I got?

[tonyvid]

2013BRM said:

smegmore said:

zygalski said:

Mobility of the population is the most worrying aspect of a modern pandemic.

Definitely, the availability of world wide air travel would mean the virus spreading at an exponential rate, a far cry from the Spanish flu of 1918.

I can recommend the book Hot Zone which is an accurate description of ebola and, to quote Stephen King, 'the most terrifying thing he has ever read'

Great book

[Beati Dogu]

I read that back in the 90s. Ebola basically liquifies your insides. "Sloughing of the gut" was how it was described in the book.

[vxr8mate]

I'm sure there are people that have a natural immunity to Ebola and the likes, so at least one or two of us will survive.

[otolith]

It typically kills less than 90% of patients, so if everybody caught it there would still be around 700,000,000 of us left.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

vxr8mate said:

so at least one or two of us will survive.

Ebola has a mortality rate of up to 90% so some people will always survive.

However, given its incubation period of 2-21 days, mortality rate, rapid onset of symptoms to death time (7 days), as well as the fact that the 4 strains lethal to humans are passed via infected bodily fluids, Ebola is a particularly inefficient virus in terms of spread.

Rapid quarantining of an infected area, coupled with good aseptic techniques, means that any outbreak should rapidly 'burn out'.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

otolith said:

I wonder if it is actually possible to insert the entire genome of a small and nasty virus into that of a large and highly contagious one, and have it express the virions of the smaller virus as well as those of the chimera?

At last one Paper was written (and Classified) in the early 1980s regarding the use of Marburg virus RNA inside a larger viral 'carrier'.

The Soviets were certainly also working with Marburg (and had a number of laboratory accidents) so may have gone down the same route.

However such techniques are/were rather 'crude' given today's biotechnology and I would suggest that using Recombinant techniques to modify the genomes of known pathogens would be far more efficient for 'Weaponisation' purposes.

[otolith]

Probably - a nastier smallpox which itself causes haemorrhagic fever is probably as dangerous as one which acts as a vector for one (at least once it is understood what is being dealt with - a genuinely chimeric virus would be very confusing for medics). It's an interesting theoretical question, though.

[KemP]

otolith said:

According to Ken Alibek, the soviets were successful in genetically modifying smallpox to express parts of the Ebola genome. I wonder if it is actually possible to insert the entire genome of a small and nasty virus into that of a large and highly contagious one, and have it express the virions of the smaller virus as well as those of the chimera? I don't think that's what the Soviets did, I think they just created a nastier smallpox.

His Biohazard book still gives me nightmares. It been 15 years since he wrote it so I hate to think what has been done since then

[tenpenceshort]

funkyrobot said:

I'm much more terrified of finding Viagra in a hire car.

what would that point to?

[HoHoHo]

tenpenceshort said:

funkyrobot said:

I'm much more terrified of finding Viagra in a hire car.

what would that point to?

I suppose that would depend on what angle you sat at in the seat but at least the windscreen if not the cars roof otherwise ask for your money back

[billzeebub]

Pixelpeep said:

Don't pick up a copy of New Scientist magazine any time soon - they have been running stories on this for nearly a year now.

we are all doooooooooomed.


DOOOOOOOMMMED I TELL YA.....

I will be happy if Ebola doesn't get me till I've had chance to watch the new Dads Army film..

[otolith]

KemP said:

His Biohazard book still gives me nightmares. It been 15 years since he wrote it so I hate to think what has been done since then

I don't think they've had any money. I'm more worried about how secure what they did then is now.

[perdu]

billzeebub said:

Pixelpeep said:

Don't pick up a copy of New Scientist magazine any time soon - they have been running stories on this for nearly a year now.

we are all doooooooooomed.


DOOOOOOOMMMED I TELL YA.....

I will be happy if Ebola doesn't get me till I've had chance to watch the new Dads Army film..

Oh good

A new Dad's Army Film

[lamboman100]

Major disease epidemics (>5% of population) usually only happen to humans in times of prolonged war or societal stress. Wears down the collective human immunity.

As long as we in the west are queueing, not fighting, for food, water, money, commodities or land, there will be no major disease epidemics ever again. Ebola is unpleasant, but not a threat to humanity.

[TVR1]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...