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Massive Ebola Outbreak Continues to Rage; Case Count Surpasses 1,000:
The tally of deadly Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ticked above 1,000 this weekend as health responders continue to struggle to thwart the disease amid violent conflict.
The outbreak has been raging since August in the country’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which sit on the eastern side of the country, bordering South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda. The World Health Organization reported 1,009 cases (944 confirmed, 65 probable), including 629 deaths (564 confirmed, 65 probable) on Saturday, March 23.
The outbreak is the second largest of all time, surpassed only by the 2014 West African outbreak, which involved more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths.
Violent attacks and lingering distrust have hampered medical responses throughout the outbreak. Earlier this month, militants attacked a treatment center in the city of Butembo in North Kivu, killing a police officer and injuring health workers. Last month, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspended medical responses after two other attacks on treatment centers. In both attacks, unidentified assailants partially burnt down facilities.
If the disease won't kill them, the violence could get them, instead. Or their family. What can they do? Leave? Where do they go? And what if they cannot afford to leave?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:59AM (9 children)
I'm noticing an alarming number of people who post to SN with this kind of sentiment. Whenever I see this I am reminded of a passage from Dicken's A Christmas Carol: [gutenberg.org]
Are you sure that you are not even more useless than those people suffering through the latest ebola outbreak? Are you really sure?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:04AM (7 children)
Even if I am more useless than the people in the ebola outbreak -- so what? There's no ebola where I am. It's not like we gave them ebola in order to have an excuse to kill them. If they didn't have ebola, we wouldn't want to do anything to them. But they do have ebola.
I'm not the nuke 'em all AC above, but I agree with him to this extent: the ebola must be eliminated, or contained. I favor containment -- a complete quarantine of the area. If the area that needs to be quarantined is the country, so be it. If it's the entire continent of Africa, so be it. Nothing and no one, in or out. Ships try to get out, sink it. Planes fly out, shoot them down. People walking out, mow them down.
If it spreads to Nebraska, we do the same there. Who doesn't matter. Where doesn't matter. Stopping it matters.
I'm sure plenty of those reading this will recoil in horror. So what? Get the fuck out of the way and let people who can make the hard choice -- to let thousands, perhaps millions, die so that billions can live -- get on with what MUST be done.
(Score: 4, Touché) by sjames on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:22AM (1 child)
So you're saying that if I can save millions by killing you and the handful of others like you, I should absolutely do it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:17PM
Go ahead and do it. Apparently, it's what MUST be done.</sarcasm>
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:36AM
The death rate seems to be about 50% of patients bad enough to get diagnosed in war torn countries with poor availability of support (eg just keeping the person hydrated).
It also looks like *at least* 15-50% of people in the region get exposed but don't get sick enough to get diagnosed, since that's the percent of people in the region with antibodies but no history of ebola: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/health/ebola-immunity.html [nytimes.com]
Total population of DRC is about 5.5 million: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/congo-population/ [worldometers.info]
So about 1k bad cases out of at least 850k exposures, or around 0.1%. Half that for deaths. And this is in countries where you are unlikely to receive proper supportive care. I'd say knock off a factor of 2-100x for better care.
So, I think you are overestimating the threat to yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:53AM
Tell me where and who are and I'll do my best to transport you in Congo. Maybe you'll learn the lesson of what means to value a human by the place and condition s/he lives in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:04PM
I think this is your fundamental error right here. You don't need complete quarantine for containment, but you will have to consult medical professionals to get a better explanation. I suggest consulting with CDC and/or WHO for more details.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:20PM
You kinda maybe deserve an "interesting", possibly an "informative". Pretty much all of America has forgotten what a quarantine is. I don't have first hand knowledge, but I got the impression that violating quarantine in days long past was a capital offense.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:44PM
I've never before felt so clearly that we need a "Nazi" mod.
Calling a spade a spade.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:31AM
I touched Reply, my "Reply" went to the wrong place. But, look who wrote the article -- Beth Mole. I'm a germophobe, I wash my hands as often as possible because of germs. But Beth takes it much farther. And I would say, too far. It must be very scarey for our Seventh Day Adventists, our Orthodox Jews and the wonderful people of Africa when they see these so-called stories and the very violent "Replies." Crazy!