What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola

[B2G]

What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola
By MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLMSEPT. 11, 2014


MINNEAPOLIS — THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.

There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.
The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums. What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu.


The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.

(More at link)

***Michael T. Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.




http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140911&nlid=745484&tntemail0=y&_r=2#

[pscot]

1. There are over a million Chinese in southern Africa

now, with a lot of back and forth travel. There's always been traffic between India and East Africa. The possibilities are alarming.

[Sopkoviak]

2. Malaria Statistics

Malaria is a deadly mosquito-borne disease that affects millions each year in Africa and around the world:
Over half a million (627, 000) people die from malaria each year, mostly children younger than five years old.
There are an estimated 207million cases of malaria each year.
Although the vast majority of malaria cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is a public-health problem in more than 109 countries in the world, 45 of which are in Africa.
90% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria costs an estimated $12 billion in lost productivity in A

- See more at: http://www.netsforlifeafrica.org/malaria/malaria-statistics#sthash.VURrdIfo.dpuf

I suggest Osterholm keep an eye on his own mosquito infested state. All it will take is a few "carriers" to land at MSP and katy-bar-the-door.

Mpls. and St. paul are home to a very large Somali population. I hope they're screening for both diseases.

[XemaSab]

15. Malaria is only transmitted by some mosquito species

People in Minnesota don't need to worry about it.

[Sopkoviak]

16. Well that's a relief

Habitat
Although malaria is nowadays limited to tropical areas, most notoriously the regions of sub-Saharan Africa, many Anopheles species live in colder latitudes (see this map from the CDC). Indeed, malaria outbreaks have, in the past, occurred in colder climates, for example during the construction of the Rideau Canal in Canada during the 1820s. Since then, the Plasmodium parasite (not the Anopheles mosquito) has been eliminated from first world countries.
The CDC warns, however, that "Anopheles that can transmit malaria are found not only in malaria-endemic areas, but also in areas where malaria has been eliminated. The latter areas are thus constantly at risk of reintroduction of the disease.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anopheles#Habitat

[Anansi1171]

3. I hate to go CT here. Mother Nature could aerialize it, but wouldnt...

...Occums Razor favor the cause being the people who have invested, researched and developed weaponized ebola?

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Taht makes 2 of us who are wondering about that.

And I am sure we are not alone.

There are suggestions about that, but also a factor in the spread is human nature: people are hiding the sick, people are fighting quarantine measures,
etc.

[B2G]

5. Who exactly are 'those people'? nt

[Anansi1171]

9. As follows...

http://www.restonnow.com/2014/07/31/restons-link-to-ebola-nearly-25-years-later/

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Nope.

Ockham's Razor: "Entities ought not to be multiplied, except out of necessity" (that is, the simplest explanation is most likely correct). The simplest explanation for ebola going airborne would be mutation in a vastly larger infected population than it's ever had previously.

[BrotherIvan]

8. Logic

[dickthegrouch]

6. If we're in uncharted waters

It's because the authorities have ignored the countless warnings from movies like "Epidemic", TV shows like "The last Ship" and many others. Yes, those were fiction, but they were entirely plausible at the time, and have now been shown to be prophetic.

How many other disasters are just waiting around the corner because some mad fool decides to implement a movie script for real? "Hostages"?, White House Down"? Have the questions those raised *really* been addressed?

When we always have hundreds of billions for war but have to fight to keep mere tens of millions for medical research we are bankrupt in every possible way.

[craigmatic]

10. We're not in uncharted water. There's a cure they give to white American doctors but keep from

Africans. We should cut the red tape and speed up production on it and send it there but we won't because big pharma wants its profits.

[B2G]

17. If you're referring to ZMapp,

Only 3 people have received it and one of them, a Spanish priest, died.

[craigmatic]

19. Well I'd rather die with the chance of getting cured than with no hope at all.

[FLPanhandle]

12. What a load of bullshit fear mongering

Ebola has killed 2,300.

The common flu kills 250K to half a million people each and every year.

According to the WHO, this year alone there were over 200 million malaria cases and over 600,000 malaria deaths.

3.4 million people die each and every year from water borne illnesses.

The largest pandemic to ever hit the US was the Spanish flu.

Ebola is nothing in comparison. It's just new and the media is latching on to it.

Realistically, a virulent new flu virus is much more of a risk than Ebola evolving to become airborne.

[FrodosPet]

13. Prince Phillip wants to be reincarnated as a deadly virus

Maybe he decided not to wait, and is financially helping create a superbug? This virus would be a good platform for the population reduction and human extinction movements. And he is on the record saying he supports mass murder of the human population.

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http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh

I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist... I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.

Foreword to If I Were an Animal (1987) by Fleur Cowles ISBN 9780688061500

[Jamastiene]

14. Fuck!

Ebola is already on my list as the scariest thing out there as far as illnesses go. Reading that news makes me want to find a HAZMAT suit and stay in it until I'm sure the coast is clear. Btw, where does one find a HAZMAT suit?

[locks]

18. A Colorado-based charity

Project C.U.R.E is sending protective clothing to West Africa. Think they might give you one free if you donated enough to send 500 or so suits to the workers caring for ebola patients? You might try.