Ebola is Not Z Virus, but

The ebola virus is running rampant in African countries mostly because those countries have very poor sewage systems, poor hygiene and they don't manage their waste effectively.

It won't get the same foothold in counties that have proper waste management. We've seen that any case that makes it into a 1st world country like the Us or Ireland is caught immediately and treated effectively.

Ever since Europe started properly managing its waste and identified that human waste is what allows most diseases to spread, we have avoided the large scale plagues that used to devastate European populations on a regular basis. Even the ancient Romans famous for their sewage systems mostly lived in their own filth and rubbish tips that included dead bodies were all over the city.

I'd have faith that Europe can deal with the majority of standard diseases. Liberal Europe would have real problems dealing with the walking dead though. We probably wouldn't have the heart to start killing zombies until it's too late.

people are far too over confident with our ability to contain ebola.

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

true. but poor hygiene is where it starts, right? Do you think that if there are sufficient numbers of infected in a 'clean' city, that the very infectious dead-bodies will spread the disease easily without the aid of poor sewage etc?

Even if you were to dump the dead bodies into our water supply it might not be enough for the virus to infect enough people to be a serious threat to the country.

Don't some parts of Galway still have a cryptosporidium problem with their water? There's a virus that has the means to infect a lot of people but still has problems because people are aware and have ways of avoiding it.

As long as a country deals with it's human waste properly it's very hard for a disease that transfers between humans to spread.

Of course the zombie disease would have other means that we would have trouble controlling, the dead wouldn't wait around for us to collect and dispose of them properly and protective gear won't be able to withstand a fighting patient. It's the ideal way for a virus or disease to circumvent all our safeguards. They'll move around spreading the disease over a wider area bypassing our safety controls getting into food supplies after they've been sealed, contaminating any standing water, contaminating public areas.

I think part of the problem with most zombie stories is that the disease isn't as infectious as it should be. It shouldn't be the case that the zombie needs to bite you, all it would need to do is get it's bodily fluids on you or contaminate areas that you would visit.