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: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:39AM (7 children)
We need someone to load all those sick people up, and bring them to America!
(Score: 2) by black6host on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:59AM
Just so you know who shot you. :)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:18AM (5 children)
...what the ever-loving chthonic fuck is wrong with you?! How is this even relevant? You're even more pathetic than Trump continuing his feud with a dead man.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:14PM (4 children)
So - you expect Trump to let the zombies get him, just because they were dead, and are now undead? You let him feud with the dead guy, FFS.
As for O'Bummer - what's your problem with me putting him in perspective? WTF, are former presidents suddenly sacrosanct, or some such shit? I regularly bash ALL of those former fuckheads. Kennedy and Eisenhower are my favorites, and I'll bash them from time to time as well - despite the fact that you don't remember either of them.
Always remember: Once you get elected, your ass belongs to the public. Former presidents are our bitches, to do with whatever we like.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:52PM (3 children)
What the fuck did Obama have to do with any of this? You're rambling, you senile old coprolith.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday March 27 2019, @12:58AM (2 children)
You're a very lucky young lady. Because you don't remember the rain of terror of Cheatin' Obama, our first -- and hopefully last -- African "President." Very bad time and I remember it all too well. 2019, they have 1,000 people with EBOLA and Beth Mole gets her panties in a Twist about it. Believe me, 1,000 is a nothing compared to what it was. And it's nothing like what it was.
2016, West Africa was absolutely RAGEING WITH EBOLA. Tens of thousands of "people" dieing. And Obama was letting our Bleeding Heart Doctors & Nurses fly over there, do a lot of work with the EBOLA patients and fly back -- no quarantine. I spoke out very strongly, I was almost the only Voice of Reason. I said the U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great -- but they must suffer the consequences. I said, now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. I said, stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. The United States has enough problems -- KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE! Very dangerous if they come here. People don't know this, many people in Africa are immune to EBOLA. In U.S.A., not so much. EBOLA, for the American immunity system, is this totally new thing. You let that one into our Country, it's going to be much worse here than it is in Africa. In terms of, how many get sick. Not necessarily the dieing -- because our medical is the best in the entire World. And by the way, I'm working to make it even better -- I put my legal guys on the total repeal of Obamacare. U.S.A.!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:15AM (1 child)
Ah, that makes sense. You're afraid if the white snowflake race is eradicated by smallpox, it will remind you too much of that time the indigenous peoples of North America were wiped out by ebola.
Your white snowflake race is rich. Build some hospitals. Admit PAs and RNs to the AMA. You'll figure something out if you want to preserve capitalism. Just as long as you can keep the working class fooled into believing that they're temporarily embarrassed capitalists and that "there is no money" isn't total bullshit.
If you're in the working class or not even that fortunate, it's just a matter of time anyway. Something is going to get you sooner or later because "there is no money."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:56PM
the mongoloids weren't fucking "indigenous" just because they were there when modern europeans got there, possibly not for the first time.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:43AM (16 children)
It's nothing personal. This needs to be stopped. Ebola can not survive nuclear incineration.
The same goes for polio. We want it gone. Several world leaders have the ability to cleanse the world in less than an hour.
In either case, we won't miss the people. They are useless at best.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:10AM (4 children)
You don't appear to be up on world events. You might want to look at the wildlife around Chernobyl. Life adapts, and ebola is part of life. You're not going to wipe out ebola by nuking Africa, or any parts of Africa. If, by chance, that worked, the radiation being spread around the world would probably just mutate something somewhere else into something worse. Admit it, you just get a woodie at the thought of big bombs and millions of dead darkies.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:15AM
Yup, nukes [youtube.com] are definitely not the precedent here.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:28AM (2 children)
The only part of Chernobyl that counts is deep inside the reactor. Life sure did die there, and any disease contained solely within it is long gone.
Of course you know what I mean though. I mean heating the Ebola into plasma, ripping all the molecules apart into ions.
Yes, I do like big bombs. I like dead non-Westerners, particularly those who are corrupt and uncivilized. I can tolerate South Korea and Japan.
Don't you care about carbon emissions? Killing 7 billion people would help. Doing it with nukes is carbon-free.
But OK... we can do this without big bombs. It might be less enjoyable. We can mass produce small drones, each with a cheap rifle, designed to automatically target anything that moves. If going out to acquire supplies becomes impossible, it won't be more than a few weeks before every mammal larger than a housecat is gone. This alone may wipe out ebola; victory is assured if we get the bats. (bats are suspected to be ebola carriers) As a backup plan to wipe out any stragglers, we can spray nerve gas.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:37AM
Start that sprayer at your house first.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:39PM
Let me be the first one to tell you to get out of your mom's basement.
(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!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:40PM
Came in expecting racist trolls, was sad I was correct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:53AM (4 children)
Where have we seen that before?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:06AM
The zombie apocalypse?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:37AM
There's quite a lot going on in DR Congo. Black Agenda Report has ongoing coverage [blackagendareport.com].
See also Congo in the Abyss [consortiumnews.com].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:15AM
Look at the By Line. It's another Beth Mole number. The Editors, for some reason, absolutely love these Beth Mole articles from Arse Tecnics. Beth is always out for someone's blood. Today it's the folks in Nambia we're supposed to hate & fear. Yesterday they got the torches & pitchforks out for the Doctor in San Diego. Before that it was the pogrom against our upstate New York Jews. Can we call it anti-semitic? They used to say, "oh the Jews are poisoning our wells." Now it's "oh the Jews are spreading measles." Gets a lot of clicks, a lot of tweets and if somebody takes it seriously and starts whacking people, I won't be surprised. Disgusting!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @06:06AM
Charlottesville [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:07AM
Yet another "open label" study. I can't believe they are getting away with this obvious scam:
https://www.who.int/ebola/drc-2018/summary-deliberations-ebola-therapeutics.pdf [who.int]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by chewbacon on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
Since it may pain you to deduce the answer to this question, I’ll answer it for you: they’ll be killed. Sad, but no use being snowflakes about it and beating around the bush. We have it fucking fantastic in the developed world, don’t we? Don’t believe how good the developed world is despite our struggle against plastic straws and Russian collusion? Travel abroad to the third world.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:21AM
That's why I don't take vaccines. Life is too good.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:35AM (5 children)
Burning hospitals in areas with poverty, poor sanitation and ongoing epidemics is effectively biological warfare by indirect means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:50AM (4 children)
When it's the people with the disease doing the burning then it's effectively suicide not warfare.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:00AM
It's negroes in Africa. Helping them is hopeless.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:06PM (2 children)
Obviously, it wasn't those suffering from Ebola that burnt the hospitals. They may get it later, but for now it was a military tactic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:41PM (1 child)
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/news/drc-msf-suspends-medical-activities-after-ebola-treatment-center [doctorswithoutborders.org]
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/breaks-heart-chief-decries-raid-drc-ebola-centre-190309193641595.html [aljazeera.com]
In both cases they say "no choice" but to do the opposite of each other. Which is it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:45PM
Also:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/breaks-heart-chief-decries-raid-drc-ebola-centre-190309193641595.html [aljazeera.com]
There is no "the" Mai-Mai rebel group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai-Mai [wikipedia.org]
God I hate the news, it doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.
(Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:15PM
I love you Ebola-chan!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:32PM (2 children)
The comments really took a nose dive from the start.
Ebola is endemic to really poor areas of the world, is quite resilient, and very deadly. Those are the kinds of things that really make Ebola scary. Also, air travel has brought the world mere hours apart from any other place in the world. It's unfortunate that stories like this don't generate more press in developed nations. Perhaps then, there would be a greater push towards eradicating or controlling outbreaks. Though, that may not have helped the current situation.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:24PM
I sense a potential new meme . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:27PM
Source? If 15%+ people in these areas have antibodies towards it then it can't be that deadly. It seems to be very deadly in the subset of cases that make it to a hospital to get reported, but those seem to be only 0.1% (1/1000) max of the total cases. If doctors are only seeing the top tenth of a percent worst cases then it would appear much more dangerous than it is.
Some back of the napkin considerations here:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=30744&page=1&cid=819931#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]