Freaked out by news of Ebola outbreak!!

[missymarmite]

I don't know why but this has me really scared. Am contemplating going into hiding with family until it all blows over!

1. Do you eat Bats (African Bats at that)

No , good, no worries about Ebola then.

Black Death = Pneumonic Plague or in its early manifestations Bubonic Plague is spread by Rodents , it is found in ground squirrels in the US Desert States and The Asian Steppe. Its latin Name is Yersinia Pestis Pestis it is a BACTERIA NOT A VIRUS and is easily controlled by modern antibiotics.There is absolutely NO risk from Skeletal remains in the London Plague pits , it is being seen as a result of studying its residual DNA in victims teeth.....

I think that this will be contained pretty quickly now that the cause has been identified (looking at flutrackers it took quite a while to find out what the outbreak is).

Two really good things on favour of slowing it down rapidly: it tends to make people very poorly quickly so they are too unwell to travel - it also kills a high percentage, meaning it can bring itself to a halt.
It only spreads by direct contact with bodily fluid of people who are obviously sick or by eating bush meat.

There have been bigger outbreaks in the past that have been contained. The medical teams are rapidly tracing and quarantining contacts of sick people.

those of you in the UK:

we can drink the water without worrying.
no flying insect spreads disease.
there is one poisonous snake.
there's no rabies.
there are no earthquakes worth worrying about. No volcanoes.

isn't it great?

And we are vaccinated against so many diseases. We are very fortunate.

It's drug resistant TB that I think that actually should frighten us

Definitely.

And other bacteria too. :(

As for Guinean immigrants. The risk in the UK is mostly for health personnel who might be in contact with any sick person before they realise what is wrong, not for the general population.

We're doomed!

BigRedBall loving the helpful graphic, am going to print it out in order to study it closely.

TB definitely.
I have relatives on both sides of my family that were severely impacted by TB throughout their lives in this country.

*those of you in the UK:

we can drink the water without worrying.
no flying insect spreads disease.
there is one poisonous snake.
there's no rabies.
there are no earthquakes worth worrying about. No volcanoes.

isn't it great?*

That's one poisonous snake too many for my liking

I'm joking though - thanks to the miracle that is Seroxat ;)

I get it OP. I read "The Hot Zone" years ago and was left with a persistent feeling of fear and dread for days afterwards. Still one of the scariest books I've read (it's a fact-based but somewhat fictionalized account of an outbreak of Ebola-type virus).

As other posters have explained, though, it is an irrational fear for those of us in the UK.

bubblegoose you do that. You might want to keep a few hours spare to really get the gist of it. :)

Am I right in thinking 4 of the 5 cats were at the same vets and the one that spread the disease was a kitten?

autocorrect - which disease outbreak are you talking about?

Sorry, yeah, that might have been helpful!!!!
The TB outbreak mentioned up thread

Some bats here have rabies.....

The Ebola Virus despite being very deadly is very fragile and sensitive to temperatures - I would not worry about it reaching here. However a weaponized version created for terror purposes should get you shitting yourself before the virus infects you.

We've survived SARS, Avian Flu, and Swine Flu.

The world has yet to go the way of The Stand :o

I know how debilitating and lonely anxiety can be OP, please see your GP

Isn't there a case in Canada?

Ebola is an animal virus primarily. Only rarely crosses into the human population and it's clearly not adapted for long term survival within it.

The Canada case seems to have been malaria. It tested negative for usual haemorragic viruses.

Ebola is a bat virus, and as Lweji said it's really not adapted to humans. It's almost as difficult to catch off someone as an STD i.e. you have to have skin to skin contact with someone who is infected and even then you probably won't catch it if they're still asymptomatic. How many people do you actually touch in a day? How many people do you touch who look like they have chicken pox (a spotty rash is one of the first symptoms). Also, symptoms normally show up a few days after infection and it makes you very ill, very quickly which means that most infected people won't be walking the streets. Outbreaks of ebola fizzle out themselves really quickly.

And DH scoffed at me for buying the HazMat suits...

That should have read:

It's almost as difficult to catch off someone as an STD i.e. you have to have skin to skin contact with someone who is infected and even then you probably won't catch it especially if they're still asymptomatic.