A CDC press release confirms what has already been reported in other sources. The Liberian man became ill four days after arriving in the US, and sought medical help two days later. He was sent home, but returned to hospital two days later and was admitted. Hopefully Ebola's ability to spread through the air remains limited.
Notwithstanding the BBC report, the CDC report states:
The data health officials have seen in the past few decades since Ebola was discovered indicate that it is not spread through casual contact or through the air. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to objects such as needles that have been contaminated. The illness has an average 8-10 day incubation period (although it ranges from 2 to 21 days); CDC recommends monitoring exposed people for symptoms a complete 21 days. People are not contagious after exposure unless they develop symptoms.
See our earlier stories: How Ebola Blocks Immune System, Second Ebola Outbreak in DRC Unrelated to First, and Ebola Disease Modelers: 100K by December.
Related Stories
The Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) are reporting:
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine have identified one way the Ebola virus dodges the body's antiviral defenses, providing important insight that could lead to new therapies, in research results published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.
In work performed at Beamline 19ID at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, the researchers developed a detailed map of how a non-pathogenic Ebola protein, VP24, binds to a host protein that takes signaling molecules in and out of the cell nucleus.
Their map revealed that the viral protein takes away the host protein’s ability to carry an important immune signal into the nucleus. This signal helps activate the immune system's antiviral defenses, and blocking it is believed to contribute significantly to the virus’s deadliness.
Unfortunately, the report is shown in full above and there is no detail or further discussion in the linked article. It remains of interest, of course, because it shows that progress is being made in the effort to find an effective cure for the disease. Your thoughts?
[Editors Belated Comment: nishi.b found a more detailed link here .]
ScienceMag is reporting that a second outbreak of Ebola in the Congo (DRC) is not related to the 6 month epidemic in West Africa.
The DRC outbreak, first reported to WHO on 26 August, has so far sickened 53 people and killed 31, according to WHO. Early test results suggested the two outbreaks were caused by two different species of Ebola.
Now, a sequence of 346 base pairs of one of the virus's genes has shown that the two outbreaks aren't directly related. The fragment has seven mutations compared with genomes from the current outbreak in Guinea, but only four mutations compared with the strain that caused the first known Ebola outbreak in 1976, also in the DRC, which was at that time named Zaire. It is even more closely related—by just three mutations—to the strain that caused an outbreak in the DRC city of Kikwit in 1995.
Epidemiological (contact) tracing hadn't suggested any links between the two outbreaks either, but rather the patient zero in the Congo was a woman who prepared "bush meat" hunted by her husband. The area is extremely remote which suggests this outbreak can be more easily contained.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of cases could ultimately exceed 20,000.
Science Mag is reporting that mathematical disease modelers around the world say this estimate is too conservative. Some claim by a factor of 5, over the next 3 months.
To a mathematician, combating any outbreak is at its core a fight to reduce one number: "Re", the pathogen’s effective reproductive rate, the number of people that an infected person in turn infects on average. An Re above 1, and the disease spreads. Below 1, an outbreak will stall.
The estimates of Re varies by country, in Guinea and Sierra Leone, Re is thought to be close to 1 and the outbreak could be stopped if interventions improve a bit. In Liberia, Re has been near 1.5 the whole time.
Poor data is hampering the modelers, with up to three-quarters of Ebola cases going unreported, there is no reason to believe the actual situation is any better in Sierra Leone. There is still only partial belief that Ebola is real by many villagers, and they continue to bury their dead in traditional ways
Another part of the problem is poor disease progression data. Currently, there is no actual data on the incubation period for this particular strain of Ebola, and modelers are forced to use 21 days, which was determined from prior outbreaks. However recent genetic studies indicating the current strain is significantly different than past strains with over 300 genetic changes.
“We have never had this kind of experience with Ebola before,” David Nabarro, coordinator of the new U.N. Ebola effort, said as he toured Freetown last week. “When it gets into the cities, then it takes on another dimension.”
(Score: -1, Troll) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @11:52AM
We're going to need something to get us out of the economic slump, and world war in the middle east for decades didn't work, so this is the next solution from the powers that be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @11:59AM
Would a war on ebola really boost the economy? I'm thinking of lost productivity if people stay home, not to mention the costs associated with a massive outbreak, if it did happen.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:56PM
Was thinking of the effect of the black death on europe.
We certainly have too many people for the system to handle per both the economist types and the enviro types, and world war hasn't worked (yet...)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:01PM
That was terrible for the elites. Not only did they die from the Black Death as well, the mass die-off resulted in a shift of power to the masses, who weren't quite as numerous or as desperate as they were before.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:27PM
Unlike the black death, ebola is pretty easy to avoid catching if you have money. Don't go to work or at least don't share space with other people. No public transport. Poor people don't have sick days at all or they're limited / tracked / fired, so every walmart employee will die once one of them catches it. On the other hand I have unlimited days so if I feel sick I'm not going to work, and that results in my coworkers not getting sick (applies to common cold too, not just ebola)
Like many non-rich people I could guarantee personal immunity from ebola for myself. It would be a near economic death penalty for me, but I'd be alive. For a rich / powerful dude, the costs would be a rounding error.
We don't have the infectious animal population here like in Africa (lots of suspicion about some primate or bat or whatever that ebola naturally lives in when its not infecting humans). So a couple weeks after the last case in the USA, it'll be safe.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:36PM
No it wouldn't. Let's use your specific example of everyone who works at Walmart getting sick, and consider one particularly rich person, Jim Walton:
1. If you have no employees left, you can't open the Walmart stores for business.
2. If you somehow get replacement employees, nobody wants to go into your stores for fear of getting infected by whatever or whoever infected your employees.
3. Therefore, (in our hypothetical example) Walmart doesn't have any sales or operations left in the US. There may be brave looters going in to clear the place out, but there's nothing coming in at the cash register.
4. Because Walmart's sales have dropped to $0, Walmart's stock drops dramatically as well.
5. Since much of Jim Walton's wealth is Walmart stock, that loss is far more than a rounding error.
And if society really breaks down, then Jim Walton's pieces of paper / electronic records saying he's rich are in fact completely worthless, because you can't eat them. The reason the nobility didn't lose all power in during the various European plagues is that their wealth was mostly armor, weapons, and arable land.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:44PM
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but you are making the assumption that "major plague" automagically equals "total societal breakdown".
1) There's no shortage of unemployed / overqualified people. Thats kinda the point. Say we lost 20%, that might be just about right WRT staffing.
2) When they get hungry, they'll shop. Maybe they'll wear masks and gloves (a lot easier in Wisconsin in the winter than Florida in the summer, but whatever). I bet a lot of bleach and masks and stuff like that would get sold.
3) Not disagreeing about the looters during the peak of the epidemic, but they'll be fine after it. I don't think your average "people of walmart" shopper is going to take up subsistence farming. If the looters burn down the building, they'll just run a farmers mkt in the parking lot.
4) Yeah no one will buy masks, medical supplies, food, bleach, walmart junk in general. Or maybe not. The average american is not exactly a shining beacon of disaster preparedness.
5) Just not seeing it as per above.
(Score: 2) by Joe on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:44PM
Ebola is pretty easy to avoid catching unless you have a fetish for close contact with bodily fluids from infected people. Ebola does not spread like the common cold and the US healthcare infrastructure would not support a sustained outbreak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @10:58PM
The mechanism by which it is typically spread is the whole family getting together for a ritualized washing of the corpse before burial.
(You did need a *not* in there somewhere, however.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 01 2014, @09:38PM
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:23PM
I'm siding with predictions that claim that there will be plenty of food to feed 10-12 billion, after yield and distribution improvements, that population growth will slow, with population possibly peaking above 11 billion, and that there will be exponential growth in solar/renewables and a steep decline in solar costs. Recycling and manufacturing improvements will reduce resource depletion, and the eventual introduction of (non-tokamak) fusion and maybe thorium will provide even more abundant energy.
The unborn will have greater access to computing and networking resources (supercomputers will hit zettascale and even yottascale). More eyeballs will see advertising in some form. More people will do useful science (even if the proportion of scientists were to decline). More things will get done with more people, even if the value of labor collapses.
I know there are conspiracies that Kissinger/Bilderberg types want to depopulate the planet, but I don't see why they would. I see a chance for prosperity, and if things do go wrong, people will depopulate themselves. Violently or virally. The elites will have plenty of options allowing them to avoid the chaos.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:37PM
"depopulate the planet"
I donno about depopulate, but we clearly have way too many people, qualified and otherwise, for the shrinking size of the economy. Gotta do something about that medium term-ish one way or another.
Yield and distribution of produce are the limiters only when there's no limits from mining (phosphorous, and other things) and energy (oil and natgas). Good luck with yield and distribution of produce without fuel or modern chemical fertilizers or modern insecticides and herbicides. There won't be any produce.
Its more of a long term grind anyway. More like how does society devolve if the population needs to spend 50% of its income on taxes, 66% on real estate financing, 25% on higher education loans for the jobs that don't exist, and increase food fraction from maybe 20% to 80% of their income (a mere quadrupling, pocket change compared to increases in medical care, education, govt spending, FIRE sector in general). Once that adds up to a high enough number over 100% of median income, you got major societal unrest even if they're still being poorly fed.
One way to look at it is you can pacify a population by sitting them in front of a TV with a beer and some pizza, and do anything you want to their civil rights. Now shut down football because the advertisers figure out the viewers have no money to harvest, and shut down the TV because they can't pay the electric bill, and take away the beer and pizza because all they can afford is like oatmeal porridge, then see if they're distracted when they get messed with. Thats how cities burn. Once that happens then and only then does it get hard to even obtain oatmeal porridge and thats when starvation sets in.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday October 02 2014, @12:10AM
That is not at all "clear" since the global economy is growing not shrinking.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:22PM
Seems rather like a lack of action. The general belief is perhaps it's a problem that only affect Africa. So there will be insufficient funds to deal with it while the price tag is low. Continuing the current path will likely lead to a crisis and then events will cost way more to deal with.
The cost of Ebola gene mixed with common flu might scare the shit out of anyone. The historic comparision is the 1918 Spanish flu which got produced by close proximity of species (birds, pigs etc).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:00PM
The 1918 Spanish flu killed only 10-20% of the infected people. Ebola has a fatal prognosis of 25-90% [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:55PM
Something to think about from the historical records is the spanish flu is something of an outlier usually you get multiple waves of disease for a generation (see roman / byzantium experiences with various plagues). For that matter see the African continent experience with Ebola, you get a bit of an outbreak almost every year, although this year's is particularly bad and has reached the USA.
So the likely outcome isn't everyone gets ebola and 90% die in one shot, or 15% get ebola resulting in 10% of the population dying in one shot, but maybe we lose 5% of the population or about 1 in 20 every other year for, possibly, decades.
That's probably long term survivable (as long as its only decades and not centuries and does eventually stop) AND would have a pretty severe effect on worldwide population after the tenth or so outbreak which is only 20 years total.
Plus or minus illegal aliens etc the population of the USA has increased by about 50% over my lifetime and nothing specifically weird about that has resulted other than a lot of environmental destruction and massive real estate overbuilding both residential and commercial. I see no particular reason the population of the USA couldn't decrease by 50% over my sons lifetime. In my dad's and late in my grandfather's generation we had "rust belt" where half of cities populations disappeared due to deindustrialization. That was all done by the time I was a kid, but the cities more or less still live, sorta. It happened to Detroit and Detroit is totally screwed up, but it happened to a lot of other not so screwed up cities too and they're fine because they're not Detroit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Joe on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:37PM
The genetic structure (1 segment of RNA) and life cycle of the Ebola virus is incompatible with influenza (8 segments of RNA). Also, the physical structure of each virus is completely different (helical vs. icosahedral).
- Joe
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:51PM
And no other virus Ebola can exchange genes with?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Joe on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:37PM
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: It is very difficult to speak in absolutes in science. There are no other viruses from the Filoviridae family that are in the US and there are no "mixing vessels" (like pigs for influenza). The virus life cycle also doesn't readily support recombination due to how it evades dsRNA sensors (like RIG-I). That being said: While it is possible, it is not very likely for cell to be co-infected with multiple viruses (with enough homology) that have defects in their normal replication cycle to avoid innate immune recognition and recombine to produce a virus that will out-compete non-defective virus in the same host.
- Joe
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:16PM
So ... you're telling me there's a chance!
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 01 2014, @09:37PM
Life ... finds a way...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:53AM
My thoughts were of combination of virus genes in Africa, not US. But that could later be transfered to US or elsewhere. Perhaps there are other viruses from the Filoviridae family in Africa?
If mixing is not possible, then the apathy from the other countries makes sense. It sucks for the infected persons and their countries but it won't become a pandemic. And thus funds can be withheld without direct consequence.
(Score: 2) by Joe on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:45PM
There are other Filoviruses (such as Marburg) and other Ebola virus species (such as Sudan Ebola virus), but, for the reasons I mentioned above, I don't think it is likely that a recombinant will arise. Also, each Ebola outbreak so far has been caused by a single introduction from an animal to a human so a rare recombinant still would be unlikely to get into humans.
- Joe
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday October 01 2014, @11:54AM
Lets hope there's enough ZMapp to go around..
(Score: 2, Funny) by hendrikboom on Wednesday October 01 2014, @05:02PM
There isn't enough to go around. There isn't any at all, and there won't be until the next batch is produced. They produce it in tobacco plants, and it takes a while for the plants to grow.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:56AM
Guess it's time for those other treatments to be tested..
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Sunday October 12 2014, @06:58PM
I really don't understand why my post was moderated "funny". Unless it's viewed as some kind of black humour. Or it someone thought that I made up that silly story about tobacco. ZMapp is actually produced in genetically modified tobacco plants, and the plants need time to grow. This is one of the state-of-the-art methods of producing monoclonal antibodies. Look it up.
-- hendrik
(Score: 5, Funny) by MrGuy on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:40PM
Ebola is not easy to catch. It's considerably harder to transmit from person to person than the flu, for example. Remember Swine Flu/H5N1? SARS? MERS? All easier to catch from another person than Ebola, which can only be spread from fluid-to-fluid direct contact. None has wiped us all off the planet.
A major reason the current Ebola outbreak has persisted in West Africa is due to factors we don't generally have in the US. They have a significant population that don't trust the government workers trying to help them, and refuse to cooperate. People are poorly educated. People don't understand basic science, and favor tribal superstition over clearly provable facts.
Wait - we're talking about Texas? Crap. We're all doomed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:13PM
I thought you were talking about Texas the whole time.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:03PM
That's only because your posting history reveals that you have a hard-on for texas.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday October 01 2014, @10:18PM
Texas? Heh... you beat me to the punch. I was just thinking of Texas, but then I thought it sounds more like those neo-con, neo-fascist, neo-Stalinist, Tea Party fringe wackos that infect the American political landscape. Ah, but then they are a pestilence, the Ebola of the body politic.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @01:46AM
Latest reports are that the people have started to learn the folly of their approach, but the largest problem still remains the funeral practices of Islam.
The anti-panic advice given is that ebola requires contact with bodily fluids and can not be spread aerobically.
However there is evidence that this is somewhat less than true, because of the small amount of fluid exposure required.
A sneeze spreads enough aerosolized virus in a warm moist environment to accomplish transmission. Exposure to even small
amounts of saliva or sputum can be sufficient.
Interestingly, the CDC guy in the initial announcements stated words to the effect that people on the same airplane
probably were not believed to be at risk but then said: “Ultimately, we are all connected by the air we breathe.”
At which point other doctors jumped in to correct him.
See why SOME think the whole truth is not being told [beforeitsnews.com].
(Yes, the above is probably sensationalized, but I watched that telecast and it struck we as an exceptionally bone headed thing for a doctor to say after previously stating it can't be spread by airborne means. I mean it stood out like someone dropping an F-Bomb in a sunday school.)
This event was a clusterfuck from the very beginning according to the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] and the potential number of exposed people could be quite large. He attended a party in his honor the day before he exhibited sever symptoms.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @01:53AM
Ebola, which can only be spread from fluid-to-fluid direct contact.
The fluid only method of transmission was pretty much debunked in 2012. [healthmap.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crAckZ on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:44PM
yes it is easier to catch than the flu but look at how hep-c is spreading. the numbers are increasing all the time. you can argue it is will only take out the IV drug users and the like but you would be surprised who really uses drugs casually. just because it isn't airborne that doesn't mean it won't have a huge impact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:04PM
> yes it is easier to catch than the flu but look at how hep-c is spreading.
Come on, get a grip on yourself. Hep-C spreads because carriers can go for years without showing symptoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:26PM
Take a minute and read about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem [wikipedia.org]
Oh sure, the total number of casualties right now is less than, say the number of people killed by car crashes in the U.S. each year.
Let's not worry about it! More people die each year from fast-food poisoning than this! What could go wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:58PM
Your response is a non-sequitor. Regardless of exponential growth, the factors that cause the spread of hep-c are significantly different than the factors that cause the spread of ebola. OP was making a very shitty analogy, that is all.
(Score: 1) by crAckZ on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:59PM
shitty analogy? how so? you don't know if you have ebola for up to 20 days right? how many people do you come into contact with in those 20 days that could have the same contact? look at society today and how they act. say you get some girl that likes blow, shares her straw with someone who has it (incubation period) and goes and sleeps with someone. now add that incubation period to the new people and who they could come into contact with. you also have to assume the promiscuous nature of that demographic. i forgot how America loves to discount anything bad. i am not saying it will be a huge disaster and won't burn out but i wouldn't discount this from possibly ravaging a link of people.
shitty analogy......the only thing different is the time table for incubation which will limit the diameter of the area. and how is it non-sequitor given the nature of how these two things are spread which are the same it seems very on point.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:53PM
> shitty analogy? how so?
Because 20 days is not the same as 1500 days.
> .the only thing different is the time table for incubation which will limit the diameter of the area
It is weird how when people make shitty analogies they try to minimze the exact reason the analogy is shitty. "Only" is in fact huuuuuge.
> how is it non-sequitor?
Because your entire line of argumentation applies to ANY disease. If your analogy really was useful to understanding the risk we'd all be dead from a million other diseases by now. We aren't so clearly your internal mental model that says "this is a good analogy" is out of sync with the rest of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @03:09PM
is fine because ebola isn't contagious during the 20 day incubation period. From the article:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @10:13PM
> get a grip on yourself
If I did that, I wouldn't have to worry about the close contact thing.
(Score: 2) by Joe on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:57PM
Ebola will not be a substantial public health threat in the US due to its health care infrastructure and societal differences.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Ebola isn't important, but we live in a world with limited resources and infectious disease treatment/prevention should be prioritized based on their public health threat.
- Joe
(Score: 4, Informative) by Joe on Wednesday October 01 2014, @01:28PM
Airborne transmission, in infectious disease, is reserved for pathogens that spread through aerosol (100um droplets or smaller). If patient infected with a virus and gets on a plane - the virus isn't airborne. If a patient vomits blood, which travels through the air, into your face - the virus isn't airborne. If a patient sneezes and someone gets infected on the floor above them (connected by a ventilation shaft) - the virus is airborne.
The BBC article was either written by someone who didn't understand what airborne transmission means or someone deliberately trying to get some scare-clicks. Here is an excerpt from the freely available paper (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498927/ [nih.gov]):
- Joe
(Score: 2) by PapayaSF on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:31AM
I'm not claiming that you or the authorities are wrong, but I think this is definitely misleading to most people. If Person A is in an elevator and sick Person B sneezes and the next day Person A gets sick, I'll bet he considers himself infected by "airborne" transmission. Nobody untrained in this area thinks "Oh, the aerosol particles were too large to count as 'airborne.'"
So saying "Ebola isn't airborne" may be technically correct, but misleading.
I also think it's absurd to say "it can't be spread by casual contact" and then say you can get it from a handshake. A handshake counts as pretty "casual" to most people. I've read of journalists being given tours of Ebola treatment facilities, and being told "Don't touch the walls." That does not at all square with the claim that "it's hard to catch Ebola."
(Score: 2) by Joe on Thursday October 02 2014, @04:07PM
If Person B sneezes in the face of Person A, then I would consider that close contact with bodily fluids. If Person B sneezes in the crook of their elbow (facing away from Person A) and Person A gets infected, then it may be airborne (if there was no direct contact with the fluids). If the droplets are too large, then they should follow a ballistic trajectory and someone would have to be in the line of fire to come in contact with them. Aerosol droplets can be carried by air currents and someone who is not in direct contact can still inhale the virus.
Science deals with technical terms and scientist often argue semantics because details matter. It is unfortunate that some technical terms are misunderstood (i.e. flu) or become charged (i.e. pandemic) by the media or the public, but it is better for people to learn the proper scientific meaning than for administrators or public policy figure heads changing the meaning of the words or tiptoeing around it (the hesitation of calling 2009 H1N1 a pandemic is an example of this).
I think "casual contact" is a bullshit statement that is not well-defined scientifically and is further complicated by different cultural definitions of "casual" or even "contact" for that matter. I haven't seen any data on handshake transmission, but genomic RNA has been detected from skin of a symptom-displaying patient (although there was no "live" virus in the sample) in a previous outbreak (http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full [oxfordjournals.org]).
As for walls, the same study as above did not detect virus or genomic RNA from any fomites (contaminated surfaces) from an Ebola isolation ward (walls, food bowl, spit bowl, light switches, etc.) so I would not consider them a significant threat.
- Joe
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday October 02 2014, @08:17AM
What's your opinion/thoughts on the possibility or impossibility of Ebola transmission through sweat left behind on surfaces (handrails, shopping trolleys, door handles, fixtures and so on)?
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by Joe on Thursday October 02 2014, @02:22PM
I don't think that it is likely.
A study of a previous Ebola outbreak checked various fomites (contaminated surfaces) from an Ebola isolation ward and were not able to detect virus from any they checked (walls, food bowl, spit bowl, light switches, etc.). The group also checked the sweat of one infected patient and could not detect virus.
Here is a link to the paper: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full [oxfordjournals.org]
- Joe
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday October 03 2014, @12:43AM
Thank you!
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1) by NeoNormal on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:21PM
So, I admit I haven't read any detailed information on this. But isn't customs flagging people that return from countries with Ebola outbreaks? My 71 year old sister was held at the Toronto airport last week (returning from France) because customs wanted to search her bag... that hadn't even arrived. Caused her to be delayed by 8 hours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:01PM
That seems unrelated. How would searching luggage have anything to do with ebola?
(Score: 1) by NeoNormal on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:24PM
Obviously nothing... my point is, they should pay more attention to REAL threats at the "border" and not waste resources on things such as my sister's situation.
(Score: 3, Funny) by halcyon1234 on Wednesday October 01 2014, @03:24PM
Y'all can come move up here to Canada. It's perfectly safe up here. There's no way you can catch a virus from an outbreak. Not because of the free health care or anything. But because, as Hollywood has taught us, viruses literally stop in their tracks EXACTLY at the 49th parallel.
http://i.imgur.com/ttWlz9b.png [imgur.com]
This also grants you safety from alien invasions, too. Go watch ID4 again, try to point out a single reference to Canada. Exactly.
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 1) by dpp on Wednesday October 01 2014, @07:08PM
Zombies are slow and all, however the only sure-fire way to stop a horde of 'em is freezing in ice - pick 'em off as they thaw out during our couple of warm months.
Full disclosure:
I live on southern Vancouver Island, BC well below the 49th parallel, so keep the 'ol anti-zombie/America refugee/alien bunker stocked with weapons to repel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @08:26AM
Dead snow. [wikipedia.org]