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?

Posted too soon.. I'm not fretting!.

What good dies fretting about it actually do?

Look, I know fretting is illogical, I know, deep down that nothing will happen, but I also know that the little FrettyVoice in my head is fretting away like crazy.

It just does, everyone has their deep, primal fear; this is mine :(

Working in disinfection or decontamination is de facto risk laden. In the Hepatitis B outbreaks of the early 70s in dialysis patients the technicians who cleaned the dialysers (artificial kidneys) used in the dialysis treatment were prime amongst those staff who contracted Hep B themselves.

Ebola is very dramatic and receives a lot of press coverage exactly because it plays in to our apocalyptic worries. How many people died in Africa from Maleria or simple sepsis this week though? Far, far, far more.

Ebola is not a threat to us in the UK. It just isn't.

Ok. It's no threat...

Looks like it's getting further out of control. According to the news. But what do they know...

Nancy Writebol was decontaminating people leaving the isolation ward ie she was in contact with bodily fluids of people with ebola.

Do you really think the US would let them in to the country if they thought there would be any chance of them spreading the disease?

Do you think the families of both these US citizens will make an attempt to remove them from the hospital and take them home?

Sadly for W Africa the infrastructure contributes to the passing on the disease. If you are ill here with something infectious you are immediately isolated, you are transported to hospital in an ambulance that is disinfected afterwards by staff wearing protective gear.

In W Africa you may be put in a taxi to get to hospital, you may go by bus, wither way you will not tell the driver you have any symptoms.

After I'd had flu as an adult I definitely felt shaken up.

I found flu terrifying, genuinely thought I was going to die.

I think the not licking ill people is great advice, and you need to take it seriously.

I feel that it is important to point out that you also shouldn't have sex with someone with Ebola, or if they had Ebola (especially if they died).

It is very, very, very unlikely to infect anyone else even if someone with it did happen to get off a plane with it. It's not like 'flu in the was it's transmitted.

If it were any chance Ebola might be a threat to the western world the changes are there would have been more research paid for to cure it or vaccinate from it.

I'm about to get on a long haul flight and my hay fever is terrible. I feel sorry for the person who has to sit next to me. I wouldn't want to. I hope they don't lick me though.

I am fretting too. It's ghastly.

But - if it is more contagious, then we would be seeing much higher numbers amongst families of those affected. But we are not.

These aid workers affected - god help them - are presumably in a community where Ebola is present, mixing with relatives etc so we just don't know how they caught it.

If you want to fret, then there is some airborne virus circulating in the Middle East.....

'Looks like it's getting further out of control. According to the news. But what do they know...'

It is getting out of control, and it is a terrifying situation for the people caught up in it and their families and friends, not to mention those treating and helping the sick. It looks as though it will spread further in Africa and more lives will be lost.

My worries are for them, not us, tucked up safe in Blighty, reading scare stories written for profit and entertainment.

If you can in any way afford it, now is the time to be donating to any of the charities on the front line desperately working to save lives at the risk of their own.

gobblers who is accepting donations? Is it MSF?

I think we need a tonne of international age thrown at this.

Just answered my own question.

MSF UK is taking donations.

Their website account of what they are doing is both inspiring and humbling.

I will donate today and share on FB

Just to clarify the antibiotics thing, they absolutely do not kill viruses. They might be given to treat a secondary bacterial infection - a viral infection can make you susceptible to another infection by something else, which can end up being worse than the original infection.

You can get disinfectants which kill bacteria and viruses, but they are not generally things you should be putting in your mouth!

You can also get antivirals for some viruses - for example, the active ingredient in Zovirax kills the herpes virus. It is generally harder to kill off a virus, because they can only grow inside your own human cells, using some of the same mechanisms used by your own cells. Some viruses use a lot more of these mechanisms than others. So to kill the virus, you need to find a way of stopping it growing without interrupting a mechanism which is going to damage your own uninfected cells.

I know nothing about Ebola, but an fairly sure an antiviral does not exist.

Great post, GobblersKnob

Re flying the American doctors back to Atlanta. I read some conspiracy theorists who are convinced they are doing it not necessarily for better treatment but to get human guinea pigs instead.

Well that's an interesting theory... Doubt it tho

Not a lot is known about this virus is there

Those conspiracy theorists have watched too many bad films.

Good hand washing helps combat Ebola. I've heard the virus described as 'long and fragile'. You wash your hands intensively and you'll break up its structures.

I would disagree actually - we know a lot about this virus. We just don't have a 'cure' for it. Unsurprisingly when you consider how few people it's killed since it's inception. We don't have a cure for measles either and its killed MILLIONS over history.

There's been a disproportionately large amount of research (compared to number of people infected) into filoviruses simply because they are such interesting little fuckers, and because of the mortality rate. Particularly since Reston virus was discovered given the clues it might hold to resistance or vaccine.

If you speak Spanish I suggest you read El Pais. Spanish Monks in Liberia are warning about tests only positive in later stages of the illness,

Quint, if you've evidence please link to it. What do you mean by 'later stages of the illness?' Scaremongering and rumour without sources aren't very helpful.

elpais.com/

El Pais front page news, but it is in Spanish. My sister gave me the gist of the articles. Basically monks at a hospital in Liberia who are practicing doctors have regularly tested themselves, and despite having symptoms tested negative, until the late stages of the illness.

As far as I can see, it says that the head doctor has been symptomatic for 2 weeks and tested negative. Then they asked for another test, which was positive. I'm not quite clear on when either of these tests were in relation to his symptoms or each other. It doesn't say, or at least I don't think it does, that they've been testing themselves regularly and that this is a repeated occurrence.

Could be a lot of reasons for the first test to be negative, that don't mean the tests are only positive in the later stages of the illness. False negative or one newly opened testing centre in the whole of Liberia that's probably massively overworked and might have mixed up some samples for a start.