<p>WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation Marie-Paule Kieny told the press Friday that trial the two most advanced vaccines – one developed by GlaxoSmithKline in cooperation with the U.S. National Institute of Health, the other developed by the Canadian Public Health Agency – have already begun in the U.S., U.K. and Mali.</p>
<p>If the early vaccine trials hint at success, larger trials testing the vaccines in West Africa could begin as soon as December, Kieny said; previously the trials weren’t scheduled to start until January."</p>
<p>Love this “most-liked” letter from a reader at the Times…in response to the “loosening” of the quarentine this morning… rock on!</p>
<p>This was just insane. There is ZERO science supporting what they did to this nurse. You CANNOT infect anyone when you are asymptomatic and it appears you have to have a heck of a viral load beyond just having a fever to be infectious. The guy who died in Texas stayed at home with a fever for days with four other people living in an apartment with him and they were not infected. The people he infected were hospital workers because that’s how you get the disease – from someone who is extremely sick, and even then you have to come into contact with their bodily fluids. That’s why the people who get this disease in Africa (and in the US) are hospital workers and – in poor countries where people can’t go to the hospital – those who are taking care of their dying relatives at home. All this nurse needs to do is take her temperature two times a day and report if it goes up. Even staying at home is not necessary, but probably a good idea in the current hysterical environment. Locking her in a tent was absurd. I especially love how Christie and others refer to her as a “patient.” She was not a patient, she was a prisoner. BTW, the CDC says that about 36,000 people die of the flu every year in the US. Who is proposing that we lock up everyone who has come into contact with anyone who has had the flu? We don’t even quarantine people who actually HAVE the flu. This is an airborne disease that is a heck of a lot more contagious than Ebola.</p>
<p>Well, if they are measuring their body temperature twice a day, the fever wouldn’t need to be sustained, would it? A single reading would require them to come in and get tested, correct?</p>
<p>Quarantine is intended to be used not only for people who are displaying symptoms of communicable diseases, but also to isolate those who have been directly exposed to the disease, for the period of time defined by <em>science and medicine</em> (aka “incubation” period). Hello, 21 days, anyone? Who thought of that one, not a politician!</p>
<p>The 21-day mandatory quarantine in NJ has not been lifted. Ms. Hickox has been sent home, exactly as stated from the beginning: NJ residents would be quarantined at home, others can be transferred to their homes “when feasible.” If Ms. Hickox wasn’t “cleared” to travel on day one by the doctors attending her, there was not much Christie could do about it.</p>
<p>If you decide to live by the PR sword, you’re going to die by the PR sword as well. That’s what Christie just found out. You’d think he would have known this already.</p>
<p>Ms. Hickox is no more or less dangerous today than she was on Saturday. The fact that she’s being sent home now is therefore an admission that the way she was treated was medically unnecessary, Christie’s “diagnosis” notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Is it your position that people who are symptomatic are a danger to infect others? And that before they show symptoms, it is ok for them to be out in the public?</p>
<p>Several people here have asked about the quickness of fever coming on and how some people may have lied about having a fever because there’s no way a fever could come on that quickly and go that high, except in children. Back in July, when I developed sepsis, I literally went from feeling perfectly fine at 8PM one evening, to thinking I was going to die by midnight, with a fever of 102.3 That whole day, I had been very active, and had spent a couple of hours at the dog park in the early evening. </p>
<p>So yes, illnesses can come on very fast and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trying to pretend you don’t have anything and trying to fool others into a false sense of your health. It just happens. </p>
<p>I am aware of absolutely no evidence that asymptomatic people are a danger to infect others. And the history of the infected people in the US bears that out, and indeed suggests that the greatest danger comes when the person is very seriously ill.</p>
<p>The quarantine in the tent was a massive PR blunder. If it had been in a normal hospital room (still overkill, of course), Christie might not have had to back down. But hey–if you don’t care about science, you’d better care about PR, because it can come back and bite you.</p>
<p>Well, speaking as a resident of Maine, I am waiting with bated breath to see what happens here. Three candidates are currently locked in battle for the governorship. I can guarantee that all of them will be asked what should be done vis-a-vis quarantine for individuals exposed to Ebola. A 1% swing in voter opinion on this could decide the election.</p>
<p>The sitting governor (right-wing Republican) was elected by a narrow margin last time with less than a majority of the overall vote because the majority vote was split between an independent and the Democrat. The independent almost won. We have a similar situation again, and people who oppose LePage–the majority of the state-- are agonizing about who to vote for. LePage’s base is probably sewn up. Almost everyone else is in play. </p>
<p>“Is it your position that people who are symptomatic are a danger to infect others? And that before they show symptoms, it is ok for them to be out in the public?”</p>
<p>I don’t even believe people who are symptomatic at the beginning stages of Ebola are a danger to others. Witness all the people who were in the apartment with Duncan while he was definitely symptomatic, or the people in the ER during both his visits, or the doctors & nurses, techs, who were with him when he showed up the first time to the ER, or the people on the plane with the nurse, her boyfriend (or is that the first nurse,) the bridesmaid, the bridal shop employees. I’m sure the list could go on but I’ll stop there. None of those people got infected. </p>
<p>My point is that you say that a symptomatic person is a danger to others, a non-symptomatic person is NOT a danger to others, and that the protocol is that it’s ok to stay in public until you have symptoms.</p>
<p>What happens when you are in public and you notice that you have just started to have symptoms? You just said that you are infectious at that point. </p>
<p>How are you supposed to gauge when you are going to start having symptoms?</p>