How much exposure to the Ebola virus

[Hekate]

38. Caring for a sick family member, cleaning up their blood and vomit would do it

Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever; that is, it causes blood vessels to break. You can look up the details.

The key difference between the US/Europe and the African nations is that if we send health care workers out to -- you know -- help and inform the public, you can be assured the health care workers won't be murdered by those they are trying to help.

Even with our current somewhat degraded public health infrastructure, we are light years ahead of those poor souls. As far as I can tell from news reports, they have no public health infrastructure worth the name. It's not just having hospitals and doctors, it's having a public information base you can build on and a means of transmitting further information.

If you or a family member comes down with the flu (for instance), you can choose to wear a disposable face mask and disposable latex gloves. If they are coughing, it might be a good idea if they wore a face mask as well. But your first line of defense during cold and flu season is to wash your hands and to keep your hands away from your face, mouth, and eyes.

In this country we have the know-how and the means to combat a disease like Ebola. We understand medical isolation and can carry it out. We have disposable gloves and masks, and incinerators to burn them in. We can provide support measures like hydration and blood transfusions. When someone dies, the family typically does not hang around with the body, washing and dressing it themselves, nor do they panic and leave it in the street. Public health laws could very likely be called into play to require that only professionals handle the bodies of those who died of a highly infectious disease, up to and including cremation over the religious objections of some.

This is all very unlike what we are seeing out of Africa. Just for starters, everything we think of as single-use (gloves, masks, body suits) has to be washed and re-used because they don't have any to spare.

The news that this disease has arrived is scary, but not unexpected and not panic-worthy.