Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa: ''totally out of control"

Time to dig Dustin Hoffman out of his grave and give one more shot at curing this thing.

 

Ebola has always fascinated me. If it ever goes airborne, we are ****ed.

 

Likewise. I always wonder why it's only located in Africa. There are fruit bats elsewhere, yes? I mean I realize that medicine is more developed here in the states, but seeing as how it's incurable I don't find that to be the reasoning.

 

Simple fact is that as long as this is restricted to Africa this is never going to be very high on research priority lists, despite how dangerous is seems to be.

If a few cases occur in Europe or the US, expect people to suddenly care a great deal. FWIW it actually seems like a very hard disease to contract as is, 500 cases in a region with tens of millions would hardly qualify as an epidemic IMO.

 

Thanks much for posting that -- lots of good data.

But I have to say: as long as you need a bat to bite a gorilla in the head, and then a gorilla to bite a human in the shin, this is not going to become a major epidemic, IMHO.

I believe that could happen 300 times in Africa but not, like, 20,000 times.

 

Yeah but if that human is playa then he will be infecting 50 women per month easy.

 

and then turned into a person .

 

OK, you got me with the mad cow deal. I'm not going to let you panic me anymore though

 

The 2 Level 4 biocontainment labs in the US actively studying hemorrhagic fevers like ebola are USAMRIID at Ft. Detrick, Maryland and the National Laboratory at UTMB Galveston.

seclusion: there are hemorrhagic fevers endemic to South America, they are carried by rodents and are less lethal than ebola/marburg.

 

The fact Ebola is so deadly so quickly is also the reason it has a hard time spreading in epidemic proportions


A virus that kills its host quickly is not as affective as one that stays dormant a little longer to lets its host move around and spread contact more

 

What's your favorite country in Africa?

 

. . .or at least one that the average american gives a d*mn about. . . .

Rocket River

 

Equatorial Kundu, Zamunda and Matobo.

 

That's true now, but one of the big dangers with an outbreak of this kind of virus, even if you consider it a relatively small one, is that every person infected gives the virus a chance to mutate.

 

Pretty sure you can add CDC to that list.

 

mutations can be good. I would think the virus would most likely mutate to a less deadly state, because that type of mutation allows it to propagate and live longer. It would mutate to a way that doesn't kill its human host; thus itself. It would learn to live longer in humans, like it does in bats.

I'm not seeing why a mutation would necessarily make it more deadly. Doesn't quite makes sense under the survival of the fittest theory.

 

yes you are right, but it also includes mutating to a more communicable state such as being airborne and increasing the spectrum of hosts.

 

That's like saying HIV will mutate to airborne status. Or saying the Common Cold virus will mutate to being deadly. Viruses don't have a plan. "Hey, guys, we need to spread to more hosts, because we kill too fast. Let's go airborne."

You guys watch too much TV.