Second Ebola patient

[garland]

<p>The woman in NJ is preliminarily testing negative. Yay!</p>

<p>Incidentally, the comments on that CBSlocal article jym posted above are some of the vilest I’ve seen outside the usual wacko sites. I’m more distressed to live near those people than to live near Newark Airport.</p>

[garland]

<p>And Sally, yes, I just read that. Sounds like good people! :)</p>

[jym626]

<p>Hadn’t seen the comments at the bottom, Garland. What is wrong with these people??</p>

[oldmom4896]

<p>Doctors Without Borders transports volunteers at the organization’s expense.
<a href=“Career opportunities & benefits”>http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/work-us/work-field/benefits-opportunities&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I m sure other NGOs do the same.</p>

[Nrdsb4]

<p>Wow, I missed all the fun last night. Were you guys all at the same happy hour?</p>

[jym626]

<p>Spa night, Nrdsb4 :)</p>

[Nrdsb4]

<p>LOL.</p>

<p>So CBS interviewed some of the Dallas nurses. The program will air tomorrow night on 60 minutes.</p>

<p><a href=“Nurses who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan tell their story - CBS News”>http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nurses-who-treated-ebola-patient-thomas-eric-duncan-tell-their-story/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[sally305]

<p>Wow. There are some really good people in the world. </p>

<p><a href=“Inside the Ebola Ward - The New York Times”>Inside the Ebola Ward - The New York Times;

[collegealum314]

<p><a href=“Infections: Why Do I Keep Getting Them?”>Infections: Why Do I Keep Getting Them?;

The evidence from this epidemic, and prior Ebola outbreaks, strongly suggests that the deadly virus cannot be transmitted through a cough or sneeze, said Dr. Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with the aid organization Doctors Without Borders.</p>

<p>“If there were significant airborne transmission, we would see spontaneously generated cases that were not linked to a known case. There would be cases of casual transmission,” Sprecher said in response to questions from health professionals.</p>

<p>When experts investigate how people have contracted Ebola, “it inevitably tracks back to a significant exposure” involving direct contact with either a very sick person or a dead body teeming with the virus, Sprecher said.

</p>

<p>However, also in the same article:</p>

<p>

However, the experts admitted that these assertions are based on observations by epidemiologists, rather than by hard scientific evidence. Not enough research has been done to provide definitive answers because Ebola outbreaks have been so rare.

</p>

<p>And that’s the key issue: the small possibility of risk still exists and is enough to influence people’s behavior. We should stop putting down people by calling them hysterical. </p>

[jym626]

<p>College alum, is that the same article linked in 2358?</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>As if epidemiology is not science!</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p><a href=“West Africans Would Like To Remind You That They're Human Beings, Not A Virus | HuffPost Impact”>West Africans Would Like To Remind You That They're Human Beings, Not A Virus | HuffPost Impact;

<p>“Children who have been orphaned by the disease often have nowhere to go. People who have survived the virus, and are now immune, are being shunned. Kids from affected communities who live in America are being bullied and children who are from African countries that haven’t been touched by the virus are getting pulled out of school.”</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

College alum, is that the same article linked in 2358?

</p>

<p>Yes, it is at the bottom of the first page.</p>

<p>

As if epidemiology is not science!

</p>

<p>It’s semantics; of course, epidemiology is a science, but it is more of a statistical science. The epidemiologists here were reasoning backwards to conclude that the pattern of the outbreak doesn’t match outbreaks in which the virus is spread through coughs. This evidence is naturally not as strong as a scientific study in which they directly studied the transmission of ebola. For example, if they collected the contents of a cough of an infected chimpanzee and exposed another chimpanzee, this would be a more direct demonstration of whether the virus could be transmitted through coughs. </p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>We have to agree to disagree on this one, collegealum. The monkey experiment you are describing would not prove or disprove anything about how actual transmission would happen in a given human population; it would point towards a possibility that the transmission route exists. BTW, a few pages back Frugaldoctor linked an article that showed PCR and culture studies done on bodily fluids taken from infected patients and on the swabs from surfaces around said patients. I’m sure the doctors at Emory and Nebraska who treated Ebola patients in their facilities did similar monitoring, and the results could be published in due course.</p>

[dstark]

<p><a href=“Factbox: Ebola cases in the United States”>Factbox: Ebola cases in the United States;

[collegealum314]

<p>

The monkey experiment you are describing would not prove or disprove anything about how actual transmission would happen in a given human population; it would point towards a possibility that the transmission route exists.

Sure, it would be an animal model and they don’t always translate into the human. The actual, full, controlled study testing transmission would be unethical to perform in humans, obviously.</p>

<p>

BTW, a few pages back Frugaldoctor linked an article that showed PCR and culture studies done on bodily fluids taken from infected patients and on the swabs from surfaces around said patients.

</p>

<p>I will take a look.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Interesting story about the German Ebola patient:</p>

<p><a href=“Man Recovers From Ebola in Germany After Routine Intensive Care”>Man Recovers From Ebola in Germany After Routine Intensive Care;

[dstark]

<p>BunsenBurner, that is a great, positive article.</p>

[dstark]

<p><a href=“Ebola: WHO Declares Nigeria Free of Ebola | Time”>http://time.com/3522984/ebola-nigeria-who/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[BunsenBurner]

<p>A NEJM opinion:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1411310”>http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1411310&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And the original paper describing the German patient:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411677#discussion”>http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411677#discussion&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;