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<p>Yes. </p>
<p>Whoever is the patient zero, it won’t hurt to cook bushmeat thoroughly. Is anyone going to say they don’t have enough fuel to cook? It also won’t hurt to avoid the traditional burials of Ebola victims, either. All this is changing people’s behavior that takes time. If it’s not through eating, how did it jump from animal to people?</p>
<p>Emilybee, I thought we were referring to the first documented case of Ebola not the most recent epidemic. </p>
<p>Declaring a nation Ebola free is not the same thing as quarantining an individual for 40 days. As BB correctly points out, a 40 day quarantine would be yet another barrier to individual reporting (like a travel ban). OTOH, 40 days without a new case means there is no more Ebola in that country.</p>
<p>It is possible that eating an infected monkey could cause Ebola but the monkey is not it’s host. If it was Ebola’s host, as I understand it, the monkey would not die as a virus will not kill it’s host.</p>
<p>AW was talking about Ebola free by 40 days.</p>
<p>"
^40 days to declare Ebola free. That’s WHO recommendation, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Yes. "</p>
<p>NO. It is 42 days without new Ebola cases in a COUNTRY to declare said country Ebola-free - per WHO guidelines. It does not apply to an individual quarantine, which is still at 21 days.</p>
<p>(Cross-posted with LasMa)</p>
<p>“Emilybee, I thought we were referring to the first documented case of Ebola not the most recent epidemic.”</p>
<p>Every outbreak has a different Patient Zero. I just assumed Tatin was referring to the most recent outbreak in West Africa. </p>
<p>Cooking ebola-infected bush meat doesn’t protect the person who killed, skinned, gutted, and prepared the meat for cooking.</p>
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<p>Correct - I was talking about an individual’s risk profile being able to pass on the infection. After Day 40, the risk of infecting others approaches zero, as to be essentially non-existent, so one can be declared Ebola-free and deemed never to have been infected.</p>
<p>Or the person who is bitten by an infected animal, or swats a mosquito who’s bitten an infected animal.</p>
<p>“It is 42 days without new Ebola cases in a COUNTRY to declare said country Ebola-free - per WHO guidelines. It does not apply to an individual quarantine, which is still at 21 days.”</p>
<p>The 40 days stuff has been popping up a lot the last few days. Whatever media outlet put that number out there obviously left out the crucial part about it being the number of days with no new ebola cases for a country to be declared Ebola free. Such bad reporting and it has now spread like wild fire through the blog-o-sphere. I think we’ll probably all get concussions from banging our heads against the wall trying to correct this crucial bit of information. </p>
<p>Putting on my helmet, eb. Syracuse just cancelled a speaker who’d been in the Ebola zone, and is now symptom-free after 21 days. Used the same 40-day argument. Syracuse. A university.</p>
<p>ETA-- The person wasn’t even a healthcare worker. </p>
<p>BTW, WHO is expected to declare the end of Ebola epidemic in Nigeria on Monday. It already declared Senegal Ebola-free on Friday:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/17-october-2014/en/”>http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/17-october-2014/en/</a></p>
<p>"Forty-two days have now passed since the last contact of Senegal’s single confirmed case of Ebola virus disease completed the requisite 21-day monitoring period, under medical supervision, developed no symptoms, and tested negative for the virus.</p>
<p>WHO officially declares Senegal free of Ebola virus transmission."</p>
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<p>This is where the dim bulb media picked up the 42 days and started screeching that WHO changed its quarantine guidelines. It did NOT!</p>
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<p>And yes, the quarantine is 21 days BUT that is the minimum actually. it is not until 40 days is the individual deemed Ebola-free.</p>
<p>I did not mention or say 42 days. I mentioned 40 days. The 40 days I am referring to relates to the profile risk of the individual re being potentially infectious.</p>
<p>There are actually two salient numbers in the 40s: 1) 42 days for nation without a case to be declared Ebola-free and 2) 40 days for the individual where the infection probability risk drops to essentially zero and the individual is deemed Ebola-free.</p>
<p>EDIT: Igloo, I am not sure if WHO talks about the individual. Since you had the number 40 correct, I thought they did.</p>
<p>I took 40/42 interchangeably. Good enough for the present discussion.</p>
<p>"After Day 40, the risk of infecting others approaches zero, as to be essentially non-existent, so one can be declared Ebola-free and deemed never to have been infected.</p>
<p>OY. Capital OY. No, it does not approach ZERO:</p>
<p>“Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that 95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days; 98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval. WHO is therefore confident that detection of no new cases, with active surveillance in place, throughout this 42-day period means that an Ebola outbreak is indeed over.”</p>
<p>I hope the aid organizations are recruiting local people who have had Ebola and survived to treat the sick. They are immune for 10 years as I understand. They would not need the hazmat suits and other equipment which are in short supply. Paying them handsomely and teaching them how to start IVs for hydration and other tasks might be effective and wouldn’t put others in danger.</p>
<p>Here is a pretty good summary how the cost-benefit of the 21 days works:</p>
<p><a href=“Is a 21-Day Ebola Quarantine Really Adequate?”>http://reason.com/blog/2014/10/17/is-a-21-day-ebola-quarantine-really-adeq</a></p>
<p>Tatin, that would actually make sense. I would still provide them with PPE to avoid confusion.</p>