Nancy Writebol was disinfecting, and not in contact with the Ebola patients. Now I'm fretting

[Stratter5]

And Dr Brantly was experienced and wearing protective gear. I'm scared now, it seems easier to catch than I thought. Just what are the chances of a newly infected person getting on a plane out of there, not realising they're sick, and are they infectious at the 'cold/flu' stage, what if they sneezed in someone's face on the plane?

[gordyslovesheep]

you could get hit by a bus tomorrow - calm down

[chesterberry]

Of course it's possible, but the likelihood of it happening is low. You're not contagious until you start showing symptoms but even if a person with ebola symptoms got a plane to the UK, and sneezed in the faces of the three passengers sitting around them and they injested the bodily fluids and caught Ebola it's unlikely to become an epidemic over here.

In the UK we have better access to health care, antibacterial hand-gels, isolations rooms, antibiotics etc. We would be able to control it in the numbers that are likely to come over here.

You should probably be more worried about dying from influenza or in a car crash or catching HIV from blood on a toilet seat.

[chesterberry]

(the latter also being highly, highly, highly improbable)

[LetsFaceTheMusicAndDance]

You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork in the next couple of months than by Ebola.

(Says the woman who completely freaked out about bird flu)

[HeySoulSister]

Well it's a reality

NHS have had 'meetings' about it

Was reading about the Sierra Leone team at the commonwealth games, they don't want to go back! Don't blame them

[ikeaismylocal]

They were also living in a community with high ebola rates, they could very well have become infected by the person at the local shop or someone staying in the same accomodation as them, it wasn't neccerssarily from their patients.

[gordyslovesheep]

OMG people are having 'meetings' - we are all doomed

[Stratter5]

I know, I just keep reading that it's incredibly difficult to contract from ordinary, day to day actions. And it's my fret thing, I'm trying really hard to keep a lid on it, but it keeps getting away from me. :(

[CalamitouslyWrong]

The NHS having meetings about something doesn't mean we are all going to catch it and die. They're doing contingency planning so that, in the extremely unlikely event they have cases of Ebola to treat and contain, everyone won't catch it and die.

Stop panicking.

[LetsFaceTheMusicAndDance]

Are you able to swap frets? Genuine question. Or if you fret about something more likely to happen, will that make the fret thing worse?

[HeySoulSister]

Well the human race has to die out somehow!

[brainwashed]

Yeah, but it's not going to be by Ebola...too inefficient!

[brainwashed]

Yeah, but it's not going to be by Ebola...too inefficient!

[Purpleflamingos]

If it helps at all. I was on the emergency list of staffing for our local crematorium during the bird flu outbreak with training given. It was all contingency planning and I wasn't called up, in fact the only person that I know had bird flu was a lovely hypochondriac relative and I'm almost pretty certain it was just normal flu.

That's what management do in local councils and NHS. Mist of their plans are never needed.

[HeySoulSister]

Would our NHS even cope, they are always saying they are pushed to capacity. It would be a test that's for sure

[Thenapoleonofcrime]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2144409-Ebola?pg=1

This thread is pretty helpful and has lots of interesting information.

My fret is flu, not Ebola, given we know how easily it spreads and given it has wiped out millions of people in an outbreak in the last 100 years. That's much more realistically likely to affect you- although the swapping of these frets is probably not helping!

[CalamitouslyWrong]

SoulSister: I'd suggest reading fewer tabloid newspapers. The NHS will be fine in the unlikely event that someone incubating Ebola gets off a plane at Heathrow.

[dancingwithmyselfandthecat]

The NHS would cope. "Pushed to capacity" means pushed to deliver everything they are expected to against current expectations with existing resources.

Ebola or any other crisis would alter the equation around both expectations and resources. Routine procedures would be cancelled. Pretty much anything not critcial would be cancelled. This would free up space and money. The Govt would also pump more money in. Other public services eg the army would also be drafted in to give assistance.

[Stratter5]

I already have Flu Fret, zombies don't scare me, ghosts and ghoulies don't scare me, it's pandemics that scare the fuck out of me; oddly not the disease, but the aftermath, and break down of society.

I have an overwhelming urge to stockpile and bunker down, not helped by end of the month fuck all in my bank account syndrome.

[KnittedJimmyChoos]

I think you have every right to fret, the WHO is and cobra met to discuss it, airports on high alert etc..

[FairPhyllis]

If it gets over here (extremely remote possibility) it will be pretty easy to contain it beyond the initial cases. A big part of the problem in W Africa right now is that a lot of people don't trust Western medicine and so don't present for treatment when they start showing symptoms. Or their relatives actively prevent them from getting treatment. This is not going to happen in the UK.

Another big problem in W Africa right now is basic infection control. People are washing the bodies of people who died from Ebola. That isn't going to happen here. It would not get the opportunity to spread beyond a few early contacts.

[LetsFaceTheMusicAndDance]

I don't know whether this would make the fretting better or worse tbh, but would making a 'what if' plan help? If you do that and then at the start of it, write down the point at which you'd start to put your plan into action, when you catch yourself fretting, you can just tell yourself that it's not time to worry because the situation has not reached your trigger point yet.

[LetsFaceTheMusicAndDance]

I'm suggesting that because I think the fretting is more of a difficulty to you than the ebola. If logic and reassurance don't calm it down for you, maybe facing it head on will help.

[RobinHumphries]

The NHS would cope? Don't make me laugh! The NHS can't cope at the moment anyway let alone if a virus with a 70% death rate, no cure and no vaccine was let loose in the country! Swine flu worried them enough and that was nothing in comparison.

[scaevola]

A typical person with flu will infect about 12 others.

A typical person with Ebola will infect 1. It's revolting if you get it, with a high fatality rate, but it's not that contagious. So with early identification, isolation and quarantine it is very unlikely to become an epidemic (though there maybe small clusters of cases if an infected person travelled).

Health care workers do feature among the death rates (I was reading account of one outbreak and they made up 12% of fatalities, and I think it can range up to about 20%). Nancy Whitebol was working in the 'transfer' area between isolated patients and the rest of the world. It is a risk zone. Kent Brantly was treating the isolated patients, very much going into a risk zone. It takes remarkable (and altruistic) people to work in containment area with dangerous pathogens. The risk to them from precautions failing is omnipresent. That brave people who put themselves in harm's way to help others do somethmes catch the disease, does not mean anything new or sinister about the pathogen.