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posted by martyb on Thursday October 16 2014, @11:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the connecting-the-dots dept.

Pamela Engel writes that Americans need only look to Nigeria to calm their fears about an Ebola outbreak in the US. Nigeria is much closer to the West Africa outbreak than the US is, yet even after Ebola entered the country in the most terrifying way possible — via a visibly sick passenger on a commercial flight — officials successfully shut down the disease and prevented widespread transmission. If there are still no new cases on October 20, the World Health Organization will officially declare the country "Ebola-free". Here's how Nigeria did it.

The first person to bring Ebola to Nigeria was Patrick Sawyer, who left a hospital in Liberia against the wishes of the medical staff and flew to Nigeria. Once Sawyer arrived, it became obvious that he was ill when he passed out in the Lagos airport, and he was taken to a hospital in the densely packed city of 20 million. Once the country's first Ebola case was confirmed, Port Health Services in Nigeria started a process called contact tracing to limit the spread of the disease and created an emergency operations center to coordinate and oversee the national response. Health officials used a variety of resources, including phone records and flight manifests, to track down nearly 900 people who might have been exposed to the virus via Sawyer or the people he infected. As soon as people developed symptoms suggestive of Ebola, they were isolated in Ebola treatment facilities. Without waiting to see whether a "suspected" case tested positive, Nigeria's contact tracing team tracked down everyone who had had contact with that patient since the onset of symptoms making a staggering 18,500 face-to-face visits.

The US has many of these same procedures in place for containing Ebola, making the risk of an outbreak here very low. Contact tracing is exactly what is happening in Dallas right now; if any one of Thomas Eric Duncan's contacts shows symptoms, that person will be immediately isolated and tested. “That experience shows us that even in the case in Nigeria, when we found out later in the timeline that this patient had Ebola, that Nigeria was able to identify contacts, institute strict infection control procedures and basically bring their outbreak to a close”, says Dr. Tom Inglesby. “They did a good job in and of themselves. They worked closely with the U.S. CDC. If we can succeed in Nigeria… I do believe we will stop it here.”

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Friday October 17 2014, @04:35AM

    by anubi (2828) on Friday October 17 2014, @04:35AM (#106891) Journal

    If one *knew* it was Ebola, its one thing... if one is just feeling lousy, but goes to work anyway - especially if one is afraid of getting involved in "the system", one could easily pass the problem onto thousands of other people while personally trying to avoid a personal loss.

    I do not know about the "Do you have insurance" thing... that was the FIRST thing I was asked when I presented myself at a hospital once. I presented in error thinking I had symptoms of a heart attack. Turns out I just got caught in a panic loop. Things are different for me now; if I need to see a doctor, the first one I see is likely to do a post-mortem to find out what went wrong. That is I cannot afford to get sick.

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    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @12:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @12:02PM (#106961)

    If one *knew* it was Ebola, its one thing... if one is just feeling lousy, but goes to work anyway - especially if one is afraid of getting involved in "the system", one could easily pass the problem onto thousands of other people while personally trying to avoid a personal loss.

    For an infected and contagious person (in food service, say) to transmit the virus to thousands, he would have to barf into the gazpacho at a massive restaurant every day for a week. Vomiting into the lobster bisque would not do it, because the heat would kill the virus. Blowing his nose with bills from the cash drawer might infect dozens.

    Let's remember how the US infections came about: Duncan helped move the oozing corpse of an ebola victim. The two nurses collected samples and waste of a victim. They may have been involved in cleaning the patient and his bed of diarrhea and blood-oozing sores. That is direct, close contact. Sitting on a plane next to a guy with a fever is highly unlikely to result in infection.

    • (Score: 1) by monster on Friday October 17 2014, @02:53PM

      by monster (1260) on Friday October 17 2014, @02:53PM (#107033) Journal

      For an infected and contagious person (in food service, say) to transmit the virus to thousands, he would have to barf into the gazpacho at a massive restaurant every day for a week. Vomiting into the lobster bisque would not do it, because the heat would kill the virus. Blowing his nose with bills from the cash drawer might infect dozens.

      ... Or just be the waiter who handles the knives and forks to patrons.

      Ebola transmission isn't growing because it's deadly, it's growing because it's easy to transmit.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @05:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @05:28PM (#107092)

        For an infected and contagious person (in food service, say) to transmit the virus to thousands, he would have to barf into the gazpacho at a massive restaurant every day for a week. Vomiting into the lobster bisque would not do it, because the heat would kill the virus. Blowing his nose with bills from the cash drawer might infect dozens.

        ... Or just be the waiter who handles the knives and forks to patrons.

        Ebola transmission isn't growing because it's deadly, it's growing because it's easy to transmit.

        I don't think ebola is quite that easy to transmit. The two nurses who ended up getting infected were in sustained, intimate contact with a patient in the latter stages of the disease; they were the ones cleaning up vomit and feces, washing him and changing his sheets, taking blood and other samples, etc. Even the friends who Eric Duncan had come to visit in the USA haven't come down with ebola. So, unless your server at the restaurant is vomiting into your food or using the utensils to pick at bleeding sores, you are probably going to be OK. You can exhale and relax a bit now. Stay vigilant, yes. But don't panic, at least not yet.