U.S. Scientists See Long Fight Against Ebola (12-18 mos., Hundreds of Thousands infected)

[morningfog]

The deadly Ebola outbreak sweeping across three countries in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 months more, much longer than anticipated, and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government.

“We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.

Both the time the model says it will take to control the epidemic and the number of cases it forecasts far exceed estimates by the World Health Organization, which said last month that it hoped to control the outbreak within nine months and predicted 20,000 total cases by that time. The organization is sticking by its estimates, a W.H.O. spokesman said Friday.

But researchers at various universities say that at the virus’s present rate of growth, there could easily be close to 20,000 cases in one month, not in nine. Some of the United States’ leading epidemiologists, with long experience in tracking diseases such as influenza, have been creating computer models of the Ebola epidemic at the request of the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/africa/us-scientists-see-long-fight-against-ebola.html

[defacto7]

1. Hundreds of thousands...

brought under control?

It's like saying, "The dam is breaking. We're going to see a hundred thousand gallons break through just before we stop the 3 billion gallons coming behind it."

Absurd. You don't have a exponentiating disease of that magnitude coming under control in 18 months. They don't even know what kind of problem they are dealing with yet. They have no idea how to stop it under these conditions. There' no way to speculate a time frame or the numbers of infections let alone deaths.

[newfie11]

2. Why is this so much worse than previous outbreaks?

What I don't understand is if you must touch body fluids of an infected person to become infected, how did it reach this many?

Or has it now become airborne?
Ive seen it described both ways and in fact Pres Obama just said it was only spread through body fluids.

That's a ton of folks that's been touching contaminated body fluids!

[morningfog]

3. It's not airborne. This one is worse because it

Has pervioualy been found in remote villages. This time it has made its way to larger population centers.

[CoffeeCat]

4. How do they think they can geographically contain this then???

I just posted about this on another thread. The question is--if they expect 20,000 deaths--how in the world
could Ebola remain contained solely to Africa? That seems highly unlikely with that many deaths. Half of those
who get Ebola die. So, that means approximately 40,000 people will contract Ebola? That's staggering.

There are many unknowns and questions surrounding transmission this time. The Americans who came down
with Ebola were fully suited up, gloved and masked--and following strict CDC guidelines. They should not
have become ill, but they did. Questions remain about how exactly that happened.

This virus may be mutating. It could be airborne in some, but not all cases. This could be contributing to the
spread.

Here is an article that I posted in the other thread about scientists who documented a possible airborne transmission of
Ebola Zaire from pigs to monkeys that had never had direct contact. Scientists don't know how the monkeys (that
were in cages and never had contact with infected piglets) came down with Ebola.
http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

So, there are unknowns.

[newfie11]

5. Thank you

There is definitely much unknown about ebola.
I did see the CDC posted dried body fluid tests on hard services showed no living ebola but dried blood on hard services had viable ebola for 6 days.

Again this still doesn't explain how those trained and using CDC guidelines came down with it unless it is now airborne.