Ebola.

[TheLovelyBoots]

I'm quite nervous. AIBU?

[ramanoop]

If it wasn't just a poor peoples' disease, we'd all be vaccinated.

[EverythingIsAwesome]

How can we treat it better? What do we have that they don't?

[MrsWedgeAntilles]

I think if ebola does manage to reach Europe we'll be reaping what we've sown. Pharmaceutical companies and western government have let disease in Africa be a low priority for decades because it was happening somewhere else and so wasn't their problem and now it just might be.

Years ago I went to a really interesting lecture about haemorragic fevers and one of the things they were concerned about was the possibility of ebola and Marburg viruses swapping genetic material and allowing ebola to be passed on more easily.

[Deverethemuzzler]

Ebola is not a new disease and there have been outbreaks fairly regularly. People come and go to and from Africa in their thousands everyday.

So why us Ebola such a localised disease?

[Northernlurker]

Public health monitoring is better here oneandlonely - so an outbreak will be more contained and yes treatment is limited but it's treatment that we in the UK for example are likely to access earlier and possibly be more compliant with than in those in the current outbreak. Some people are taking their loved ones home, away from the doctors

[Sleepswithbutterflies]

I know I'm probably going to get shouted at but I can't help feeling it was selfish of that one man to get on a plane knowing he was probably infected.
He'd been to his sister's funeral and she had died from it. He was very unwell when he boarded the plane.

I don't care if we are 'just reaping what we've sown' I look at my child and I am very worried about it and think that a) all efforts should be for making a vaccine for the developing and developed world focusing on main out break areas (presume this is happening?) and b) that we should stop flights to and from affected areas for the time being. It won't eradicate the risk as someone could fly here via somewhere else and be infected but would surely lower it.

Personally I don't believe we would cope well at all with an outbreak.
I also worry about the virus mutating and becoming airborne. Could that happen?

[AbbieHoffmansAfro]

Well those of you who are worried should consider making a handsome donation to Medecins sans Frontieres, who are at the sharp end of this and trying to contain it. The more help available to the affected countries (not all of West Africa, please note) the more likely it will be the outbreak dies down rather than spreads.

[AuntieStella]

All viruses can mutate, but I don't think any of the ones which cause any of the haemorrhagic diseases (in humans and other species) have shown to date they they do so rapidly. But it is possible that one could emerge that is more readily transmissible.

[TheLovelyBoots]

I think in the worst case scenario, its relatively short incubation period (21 days) makes it a relatively easy outbreak to contain.

And, yes to the medecins san frontieres (et al) contribution. I feel deeply for the front-line team who are dealing with the deaths of their teammates, that is utterly demoralizing.

[ThisIsBULLSHIT]

Thanks backinthebox and ethel very informative.

How scary. It's nice to think we are somehow insulated from it but as others have said, it may only be a matter of time. It actually makes me want to stockpile which I know is rather reactionary but still.

[AuntieStella]

If you want to read up on emergent diseases, then I recommend The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett as a very readable introduction.

If you want to see the threat turned into a thriller (which is fiction, despite the blurb), try Hot Zone by Richard Preston.

[ThisIsBULLSHIT]

Good idea abbie

[mrsleomcgary]

The current mortality rate of this outbreak is 60% I read earlier though is typically 90%. The spread of ebola in Sierra Leone etc has a lot to do with the rituals surrounding a person when they have died, the family wash and dress the body,keep the clothes they were wearing that sort of thing, it remains highly contagious even after the host has died. While I'm not saying it's impossible that it could spread to Europe our basic infection control could quickly stop a major, apocalyptic style outbreak.

[Applefallingfromthetree2]

Devere- apparently Ebola is localised as people who have it are not infectious until they show symptoms. As they get very ill very quickly they are not likely to be out and about to spread the disease beyond the family or those caring for them. Also it kills so many of those affected and so quickly after the first symptoms appear that again only immediate family and the medical profession are at risk. In this respect it is not a particularly efficient virus.

I would assume in the Uk quarantine would be rigorously applied,unlike in Africa where individuals exposed to the virus have been able to move freely.

Even so the fact that an infected person showing symptoms was able to board a plane to Lagos seems extraordinary. They should close the borders of infected countries and not let flights in out. Air travel is so quick an individual can go from being symptom free to being gravely ill during the journey and this is a real concern

[Applefallingfromthetree2]

Abbie-agree re donations to Medicines sans Frontieres. I am amazed at the work they do all over the world.

[ParsingFlatly]

Oh the anopheles mosquito has always been present in the UK, on the north Kent marshes. It's just the virus isn't usually present in them.

But there was a little malaria outbreak when infected men returned from WW1.

Rather excitingly, the north Kent marshes are exactly where successive planners want to build their new Cliffe airport...

[Selks]

I wonder if the lady who posted a thread recently saying she was planning on going on holiday to Sierra Leone went.

[ikeaismylocal]

What I don't understand is how it is hard to transmit, surely it is just the same as norovirus and other vomiting bugs? If someone vomited on a train/plane/in a shop surely all those people would be exposed and also people not following proper handwashing precautions would spread it, and if someone vomited in the street people would walk through it and then walk the virus through their homes where babies possibly crawl.

I didn't worry at all about bird/swine flu but I am very worried about Ebola,

[backinthebox]

According to a friend who was the captain on yesterday's flight back from Monrovia, the advertised special scanners and procedures which the Liberian government say are in place at the airport are not. But don't worry - the security staff are all wearing rubber gloves when they give passengers their pat down!

[AuntieStella]

"What I don't understand is how it is hard to transmit, surely it is just the same as norovirus and other vomiting bugs?"

How infectious viruses are varies (thinkof th difference between chicken pox and shingles, and that's the same virus at different stages). How serious an illness they cause varies too, even within a family.

I'll see if I can find a good link that explains why it's like this.

( ParsingFlatly thanks. I hadn't realised it was a permanent anopheles community in Kent. There was concern a few years ago that climate change would cause their spread. Is that happening? And other disease vector mozzies - are they rising too?)

[TheLovelyBoots]

Ikea my guess is that most passengers steer clear of people who are vomiting in any case, and the crew probably has guidelines for clearing up vomit- gloves for certain.

It's not enough to just touch bodily fluids, they have to enter via broken skin or a mucus membrane.

[Sleepswithbutterflies]

Is it logistically possible to stop travel to and from affected areas?
If so then we should I think.

The hospitals can't cope with an outbreak of norovirus. Are they going to do much better against Ebola?

[AuntieStella]

Here's the CDC on the family of virus which cause haemorrhagic fevers Ebola is in the filovirus group.

[TheLovelyBoots]

The virus can survive for several days at 4C.

[ikeaismylocal]

I flew through Asia at the height of the bird flu outbreak and they took all our temperatures when we got off the plane, maybe they will start doing something like that inthe UK. The people taking the temperatures were all in bio-hazard suits, it was quite scary!

I thought that vomiting spread viruses to a room full of people so even if your sitting 4 or 5 rows away you could still be infected but hopefully not in the case of Ebola.