Ebola virus outbreak

WakeUp · 12-10-2014 07:24PM

so the Canadians are advising any of their nationals living in the three most affected countries to leave and return to Canada. I think our foreign affairs department should do likewise and issue the same directive to any Irish nationals that are living over there thinking of coming back. if they are thinking of coming back to Ireland now is the time to do it. not later right now. and if they do come back a mandatory quarantine should be set up and them placed into it whilst being monitored. it would be prudent I think to follow the Canadians lead and do this now. just to be sure.

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Health Minister Rona Ambrose is urging Canadians in three countries in West Africa where the Ebola virus is raging to consider leaving now.

The federal government issued a travel advisory Friday aimed at 216 Canadians who live in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone

"Today we are asking Canadians living in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to consider leaving by commercial means while they are still available," Ambrose said in Edmonton Friday.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ebola-outbreak-canadians-in-3-west-african-countries-advised-to-leave-1.2795808

TheBeardedLady · 12-10-2014 08:02PM

Rumour has it the nurse in Madrid is improving!

JohnDaniels · 12-10-2014 08:06PM

Thanks for the article written by the doctor who caught Ebola. It was a really eye opening read which offered some great personal insight into the disease and what its victims go through.

JohnDaniels · 12-10-2014 08:06PM

Thanks for the article written by the doctor who caught Ebola. It was a really eye opening read which offered some great personal insight into the disease and what its victims go through

WakeUp · 12-10-2014 08:13PM

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Rumour has it the nurse in Madrid is improving!

apparently she is conscious and sitting upright.

Reuters images showed Romero alert and sitting upright in her hospital room with an oxygen mask strapped to her face and responding to the hospital staff attending to her. She had taken a turn for the worse two days ago, health authorities said, and is still considered critical.

"Teresa Romero's condition has undergone no significant changes and is still serious, but stable," a government Ebola committee said in a statement on Saturday afternoon.
http://www.trust.org/item/20141011204601-mv1tp/?
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Hot+Topics/Ebola+Outbreak

youtube! · 12-10-2014 08:20PM

26 crew were given the all clear and let go on their merry way! Now what exactly were the tests they were given because if it was just temperature then we could well see our first cases very very soon as it takes 3 weeks to incubate. All this talk from the government saying there are no direct flights between the west african nations affected and Ireland doesn't matter a dam when there is shipping trade still happening !

Lord Trollington · 12-10-2014 08:28PM

youtube! wrote: »

26 crew were given the all clear and let go on their merry way! Now what exactly were the tests they were given because if it was just temperature then we could well see our first cases very very soon as it takes 3 weeks to incubate. All this talk from the government saying there are no direct flights between the west african nations affected and Ireland doesn't matter a dam when there is shipping trade still happening !

Ships captain gave the HSE a clean bill of health which allowed the ship to dock.

Anyone travelling from affected countries into Ireland should be quarantined on arrival.

I can't imagine there are many coming to Ireland from these countries at the moment so it shouldn't be hard to monitor.

ceadaoin. · 12-10-2014 08:37PM

WakeUp wrote: »

apparently she is conscious and sitting upright.

Reuters images showed Romero alert and sitting upright in her hospital room with an oxygen mask strapped to her face and responding to the hospital staff attending to her. She had taken a turn for the worse two days ago, health authorities said, and is still considered critical.

"Teresa Romero's condition has undergone no significant changes and is still serious, but stable," a government Ebola committee said in a statement on Saturday afternoon.
http://www.trust.org/item/20141011204601-mv1tp/?
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Hot+Topics/Ebola+Outbreak

That's good news. They got some ZMapp for her. Seems like it worked.

youtube! · 12-10-2014 09:28PM

Another suspected case this time in Boston...

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/12/man-with-ebola-like-symptoms-isolated-at-braintree-hospital/

youtube! · 12-10-2014 10:54PM

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/10/12/lax-possible-ebola-patient-on-united-flight-from-jfk/

...and now a plane from JFK to LAX has been stopped on the runway for over an hour and a half while a Hazmat team assemble, What if it's just a flu or something..world going crazy!

ceadaoin. · 12-10-2014 10:58PM

youtube! wrote: »

Another suspected case this time in Boston...

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/12/man-with-ebola-like-symptoms-isolated-at-braintree-hospital/

Hopefully just another false alarm. Although, this person had come back from Liberia a couple of weeks ago.

Seems like if it is ebola, you don't hear about it until it's been confirmed and the patient is in hospital. The nurse diagnosed today was admitted into the hospital on Friday but not a peep about it until this morning.

CelticRambler · 12-10-2014 11:28PM

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

'But malaria kills X every year and the flu kills Y. Ebola has only killed a few thousand.'

Shut up, shut up, shut up!!

Malaria and the flu do kill huge numbers and it is regrettable. However, they do not knock off young and healthy people, the general mortality rate is low and medical treatments can be applied that significantly improve outcomes. Malaria is an unfortunate crises of the poverty of the developed world.

Ebola has a mortality rate presently of 50% and medical intervention is limited in scope and ineffective in terms of improving outcomes. It is also growing expotentially over an extended period for the first time.

I'm not saying it's time to crack each other's skulls open nor am I saying that third world lives are any less valuable than our own. But trite dismissals on the basis of other public health issues being in existence are irritating.

Akrasia wrote: »

You dont seem to grasp the implications of exponential growth

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

Canis Lupus · 12-10-2014 11:59PM

CelticRambler wrote: »

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

Now just wait for someone to tell you it could go airborne.....

Karl Stein · 13-10-2014 12:21AM

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Now just wait for someone to tell you it could go airborne.....

Or when it gets hungry for living flesh it can burst out of the deceased victim and attach itself to an uninfected host.

13-10-2014 12:41AM

I just listened to the reverse 911 call the neighbours of nurse received early this morning . Kind of creepy. Can't link but the recording is available on wfaa Dallas. They say the woman's pet will be handled by animal welfare. Unlike Spanish authorities who put down Spanish nurses dog

My name is URL · 13-10-2014 12:55AM

Jake1 wrote: »

Can't link but the recording is available on wfaa Dallas.

Jesus that fcuking horrible. I'd sooner get ebola than navigate my way through that website.

jacksie66 · 13-10-2014 01:03AM

This post has been deleted.

Joe Doe · 13-10-2014 01:20AM

Just spotted link for newsnow feed to news about some folks called 'alison' offering free 'ebola prevention course', based in Galway apparently offering free e-learning. Not sure about the name for an educational co.

think requires pre-reg:
http://alison.com/courses/Understanding-the-Ebola-Virus-and-How-You-Can-Avoid-It

Might brush up on the aul C+ and perhaps take the free Chinese diploma too, maybe Diploma in Business Process Management after that, sounds good (if free) like it says...

WakeUp · 13-10-2014 01:22AM

CelticRambler wrote: »

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

with all due respect tell the people in those affected countries there is no ebola crisis and Im sure they would disagree with you. there is nothing perfectly normal about this outbreak , its unprecedented, 7 or 8 thousand confirmed cases of ebola and that number is thought to be understated. its gone from rural villages into urban cities. its traveled continents. that isnt normal not sure how you can say it is. and I dont think you can compare ebola to flu or sars or hiv and certainly not the measles. as Im sure you aware unless we get ahead of the curve ( last estimate I seen was 70% of cases need to be in treatment before xmas) this will continue on an exponential curve. or is that a fair comment?? because on one hand you say that doesnt mean infection rates will continue yet on the other with regard to the reproduction number say it isnt going to die out. certainly is no need to panic but certainly stay on our toes and be aware of what is going on. normalicy bias isnt going to help anyone the reality of the situation means it needs watching closely. anything else in my opinion would be negligent and possibly dangerous.

ceadaoin. · 13-10-2014 06:25AM

CelticRambler wrote: »

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

Well the WHO disagree with you on that. I guess you know better though?

Streetwalker · 13-10-2014 07:14AM

CelticRambler wrote: »

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

Reality TV news wtf?? 4000 people have died this is no joke.

ProfessorPlum · 13-10-2014 07:35AM

CelticRambler wrote: »

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

I can only hope you learned your 'disease epidemiology' in a maths/stats setting and not a health care one. Because the blindingly obvious point you seem to have missed, is the unusually high mortality rate and lack of immunity in the general population. That is what makes this current outbreak a crisis, not it's communicability. Do you think our mothers would have been panicking if 70% of children died from measles? Eh, yeah, I think they might. In the same way that. somewhere around 70% of people are infected with the virus CMV, but as it almost always causes absolutely no problem (except in pregnant women, infected during pregnancy), nobody's panicking about that either. Do you see the 'subtle' difference?

I think you point is a shining verification of miss no stars point earlier in the thread that stats are less than useless when missapplied.

Spring Onion · 13-10-2014 09:17AM

jacksie66 wrote: »

It's another bird flu/swine flu esc panic. Lots of noise about it now but when the media gets bored of it you'll hear very little about it..

I think that's happening already. Now they are printing this garbage.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/leftfield/former-chelsea-star-michael-essien-denies-twitter-rumour-that-he-has-ebola-30658988.html

Akrasia · 13-10-2014 09:22AM

CelticRambler wrote: »

Actually, I do. Having training in statistics and disease epidemiology comes in handy sometimes. :cool:

All "epidemics" have exponential growth when people first start taking them seriously - even non-infectious non-disease epidemics - so the fact that we're seeing more cases now than a year ago is perfectly normal. It doesn't mean it's going to continue into the future. For that, you need to look at the basic reproduction number (R0)

For Ebola, the R0 value is more than one, so it won't die out, but less than 2 which puts it lower than 'flu, SARS, HIV and way way way way way lower than measles (R0=12-18).

Did our mothers all panic and run around like headless chickens when we got measles? No they didn't ... or at least my generation's mothers didn't. There's a sizeable chunk of the boards.ie population that's never even seen a case of measles because ye were all vaccinated, and I'm sure there are some on here who object to having their own children vaccinated because they think measles is a mild illness.

So l'll stand by my earlier comment: there is no Ebola crisis - it's just an interesting spike in an otherwise ordinary virus's life, but it makes great "reality" TV news.

it's all about resources. Containing ebola takes a lot of resources. Patients have to be treated in isolation units, and for every patient with a confirmed case, contact tracing needs to happen and others need to be closely observed for symptoms.

When the numbers are small, this is not a big deal, but as more people get infected, the resource requirements increase exponentially and when the capacity of the health services are reached, then where do the infected receive their treatment? We know how dangerous it is to treat infected patients even when the very best facilities are available.

If ebola gets into densly populated shanty towns, we will lose any ability to contain the infection. These are over crowded places with very poor sanitation.

People will panic and try to get out of the infected areas, some of these people may carry the infection with them and will be motivated to avoid authorities while they are asymptomatic. Millions of potential disease vectors in places with nowhere near the resources required to treat and isolate people do not lead to a happy ending.

I'm not saying we should panic, but we absolutely should not be complacent about this.

Putinovsky · 13-10-2014 09:54AM

lol the skeptics keep getting proven wrong time and time again.

Akrasia · 13-10-2014 10:01AM

Putinovsky wrote: »

lol the skeptics keep getting proven wrong time and time again.

Everyone should be skeptical, especially about emotive topics like this, but skeptical thinking involves critically assessing the evidence and seeking out the best quality information before forming your opinion.

The experts in this situation are the WHO and the CDC and they are stating that we need to take this threat seriously and we should really be sending more resources to assist Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to contain the epidemic before it gets completely out of control

ThinkAboutIt · 13-10-2014 10:14AM

Whats the real chances of it coming to Ireland?

smash · 13-10-2014 10:21AM

jacksie66 wrote: »

It's another bird flu/swine flu esc panic. Lots of noise about it now but when the media gets bored of it you'll hear very little about it..

It would be great if it was another bird flu/swine flu panic but it's not. Lets face it, it's by far the biggest threat to humanity.

wildefalcon · 13-10-2014 10:22AM

Moderate, I'd say, in the short term. Not much traffic between there and here.

If it gets a hold in a major western city, then that changes.

RobertKK · 13-10-2014 10:28AM

A professor at Purdue University in the US who studied Ebola since 2003, says it is important to get Ebola under control quickly,as the longer it takes, the higher the chances it could mutate and become airborne.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/purdue-professor-says-ebola-primed-to-go-airborne

Ebola virus outbreak

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