Second Ebola patient

[Iglooo]

<p>

When would U.S. officials consider imposing a quarantine if there were an outbreak today? The CDC guidelines say a number of factors would determine whether a city or state had reached that threshold, including:

• The number of cases and the number of people exposed.
• The projected morbidity and mortality of those infected.
• The expected ease and rapidness of the spread of the disease.
• The risk for public panic.

</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>Professor Edward Kaplan at Yale University’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health</p>

<p>

But a recent study led by Professor Edward Kaplan at Yale University’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health concluded that a “race to trace” everyone who had been in contact with an infected person might not stem an epidemic today. </p>

<pre><code> Tracing people in isolated villages could be effective, but in a teeming city with millions of residents and visitors this approach could be all but impossible, the study said.
Kaplan’s study recommends mass vaccination of the local population in the face of a smallpox outbreak.
In an interview with MSNBC.com, he said that unlike the relatively small isolated outbreaks of 40 years ago, a terrorist attack using smallpox might be widespread and coordinated.
“At the time the attack is detected you don’t know if it is big or small,” he said. Instead of a couple of infections in any one place there might be a couple of thousand.
Kaplan also raised what he calls “a nightmare scenario.”
“What would happen if it were determined that the smallpox vaccinations weren’t working right — if you had been attacked with a strain of smallpox engineered to defeat the vaccine? Then a quarantine becomes of tremendous importance,” Kaplan said, as the only way to contain the disease and let it run its course in those infected, while not allowing it to spread to others.

</code></pre>

[LasMa]

<p>Iglooo, exactly. It’s hard to track people when you declare them to be criminals, which is precisely what a travel ban would do</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>They don’t track people now criminal or not. Isn’t it better not to track a few who sneak in than not to track hundreds flying in daily?</p>

[emilybee]

<p>I cannot believe we are still discussing a travel ban. Sigh. </p>

[Iglooo]

<p>

This article says that its unlikely that the virus will mutate to become airborne. However a mutation that changes it enough so that a vaccine becomes useless is likely.

</p>

<p>I am sure it is more unlikely than likely. But so much is unknown and the virus is rapidly changing that the academic community isn’t ruling anything out. AW is relaying what’s going on inside the academics. Somewhat different take than what’s distributed in public media.</p>

[scout59]

<p>

It does seem that the Ebola virus has already mutated to become more virulent. And this strain seems different from the strains years ago. Those strains killed the host so quickly that the virus didn’t spread as much. The more slowly the virus kills its host, the better for the virus because it is more likely to come in contact with other hosts that way and keep spreading.

</p>

<p>Citation, please? Evidence? I have seen no credible science that says this “mutation to greater virulence” is true. Even the article you referenced says this::</p>

<p>

But Sabeti and other researchers say that there’s no evidence that the virus is fundamentally different in any way or that it will mutate into something different.</p>

<p>Instead, these mutations are standard, just like with all viruses. Ebola is bad enough that no extra explanation is needed, beyond the fact that the outbreak happened in a densely populated place that wasn’t prepared for it.</p>

<p>“You’ve got a fairly standard Ebola virus,” Dr. Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, told the Times. “It’s just in the worst possible place.”

</p>

<p>Note: A fairly standard Ebola virus in the worst possible place.</p>

[jym626]

<p>Those “oooh its mutating faster than we can research it” scare tactics have been, as far as I can see, unsubstantiated. Time for the tin hat??</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>AW is relaying what? He is not even close to academia, based on his limited knowledge of basic chemistry, mol bio and statistics. </p>

<p>Emilybee. Yup. Going in circles around the same bush. </p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Jym, the people who were actually present at JHU did not see anyone running around with a tin foil hat on the head. :)</p>

[3scoutsmom]

<p>If we are tracking people from these countries why didn’t the folks that were tracking Mr. Dunken intervene in his care and alert his caregivers to his potential infection from the start? </p>

<p>So, it’s ok to limit travel of those who live in the US because they may have been in contact with someone with Ebola but we can’t limit travel <em>to</em> the US for people that may have been in contact with Ebola?</p>

<p>Nigeria has strict travel restrictions in place to prevent travel from other hot zone countries as do many African countries, England and from what I saw about the cruise ship, Mexico and Belize too. </p>

<p>We need to treat the infection at the source and keep the source from spreading not encouraging it to spread!</p>

<p>For those that are against limiting visas to the US, I’d like to know if any of you are volunteering to host any exchange students from Liberia this year?</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>BB, Didn’t you bring that up? To say it won’t work? Here if there’s no vaccine quarantine becomes enormously important, Prof Kapaln Yale U dept of epidemilogoy.</p>

<p>

“What would happen if it were determined that the smallpox vaccinations weren’t working right — if you had been attacked with a strain of smallpox engineered to defeat the vaccine? Then a quarantine becomes of tremendous importance,” Kaplan said, as the only way to contain the disease and let it run its course in those infected, while not allowing it to spread to others.

</p>

[jym626]

<p>Am picturing a few posters with the hat on as they type.</p>

[Bay]

<p>

“You’ve got a fairly standard Ebola virus,” Dr. Edward Holmes

</p>

<p>Hmm, I thought the current outbreak was the Zaire strain, which is the most virulent.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>Guys, the scientists could not agree on the best tactic, but they handed it over to a true authority, and Jon Stewart said all this Ebola stuff is just crrrraaaazzzzy talk. LOL.</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>^And people lament that scienec education come from church for some?</p>

[LasMa]

<p>Iglooo, all the more reason we should be burning up our representatives’ phone lines demanding that they send more money and more resources to West Africa. That’s the quickest way to stop the outbreak.</p>

[Bay]

<p>Are you doing that LasMa?</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>How soon will the money stop the disease? What shall we do in the meantime?</p>

[scout59]

<p>

Hmm, I thought the current outbreak was the Zaire strain, which is the most virulent.

</p>

<p>Virulent but standard. It’s NOT some newly evolved, super-powerful, impossible-to-predict strain that some people believe it to be. It’s not mutating. It appears to be the same old Ebola virus we’ve seen before, just in a bad place.</p>