Ebola ‘a regional threat’ as contagion hits Guinea capital

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/28/ebola-a-regional-threat-as-contagion-hits-guinea-capital/



Ebola ‘a regional threat’ as contagion hits Guinea capital
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, March 28, 2014 13:09 EDT

Guinea’s capital Conakry was on high alert on Friday after a deadly Ebola epidemic which has killed dozens in the southern forests was confirmed to have spread to the sprawling port city of two million people.

Four people believed to have been infected after attending the funeral of a brother in central Guinea have been put into isolation centres to avoid the highly contagious virus getting into the population.

Aid organisations have sent dozens of workers to help the poor west African country combat a haemorrhagic fever outbreak which has killed at least 66 people, many of whom have been confirmed to have been infected by Ebola.

“Intensive case investigations are underway to identify the source and route of these patients’ infection, record their travel histories before arrival in Conakry and determine their period of infectivity for the purposes of contact tracing,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. Ebola outbreaks scare the hell out of me.

I hope we never have an Ebola outbreak here in the U.S. There would be widespread panic, and considering how many people here have guns, that could be a recipe for a major disaster. Preachers would take advantage of the disaster, like they always do, and claim that it's God's wrath coming down on us for being tolerant of gay people, etc. More people would probably be killed by hysteria than by the virus itself.

[newfie11]

2. In the past the mode of transmission was body fluids

Now it is suspected that it can be passed in air.
That scares the crap out of me. This is a horrific illness and what it does to the body is unbelievable.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. An airborne disease with a 90% kill rate is the ultimate horror,

not to mention the horrible symptoms. If it got loose in a highly mobile country like the U.S. or the European countries, it could wipe out a large swath of the population. indeed.

[Warpy]

4. Ebola could be rapidly contained

because it has such a short prodromal period, that period when a person has been infected and can infect others but who is not yet feeling ill. The prodromal period for colds and flu is measured in days. For Ebola, it's hours.

An Ebola outbreak from an infected patient on a large jetliner (the nightmare scenario) could be contained by a 3 day shutdown, no one on the job except essential personnel who have been cleared of contact with any potentially infected person. Rapid quarantine works best and if healthy people are quarantined away from the potentially infected, it works even faster.

And since the infected person would be coming from Africa, he would likely be dead by the time the plane landed and everyone aboard would be quarantined for a few days, containing any infection.

Of course, our wonderful government would have to stop worrying about re election money for a few days and consider whether or not having enough people left to vote for them might be worthy of their notice.