To think the hysteria about Ebola is totally unjustified

[kaffkooks]

This article makes me so angry: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-29535905
How can such narrow minded, hysterical people prevent a little boy from going to school? He is not unwell, therefore does not have Ebola and is not infectious.
Even if someone with Ebola did come to the UK we would be able to deal with it as we have a decent health system. The reason it is spreading so quickly in West Africa is because they do not have a properly equiped health service and there are a lot of cultural practices that are preventing patients and their relatives from seeking help.

Are you saying HPA is not fit for purpose?

Who are you asking? No I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I have some sympathy with the parents, even if they are misguided.

I was generally and vaguely asking all posters who is saying (or I misinterpreted as saying) that he child should not be in school, despite HPA giviing him an all clear.

Remember the HPA tamiflu and swine fever fiasco?

Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim has been talking about the negative perception of Africa as being one place full of Ebola. He noted that people have stopped flying to Kenya and S Africa, even though London is actually closer to the infected areas!

It is a shame, but I can understand people being worried.

The school has 184 pupils. With a recovery rate of 70% you could be looking at 54 fatalities if they made the wrong call, you can't blame people for panicking at figures like that.

We have exclusion periods for all sorts of far less troubling illnesses so I don't see why this should be any different.

I also wonder if, from the wording of the article, the school were giving verbal reassurances but not concrete proof of what they were saying to the concerned families.

I think the PP who suggested the head should have kept her personal feelings to herself was spot on.

I had Swine Flu. It wasn't fun.

Tamiflu debacle shows they err on the side of caution, doesn't it?

The tamiflu debacle demonstrates that they have difficulty assessing risk.

Does it? They planned for a bad/worst case scenario.

Should health protection planning be based on something other than the pessimistic end of projections?

so if they were misguided then they should have been guided in the right direction.

Ebola is not an airbourne virus. It spreads through direct contact with an infected patient e.g. through blood and contact with a dead body etc etc. Talk of how many fatalities there could have been is nothing more than hysteria - there was no chance that the whole school would become infected, absolutely none, and any such talk is pure scaremongering and nothing more.

It's not ok to say that because some people are worried we should dismiss the actual facts in favour of a hysterical response just to placate idiots who won't arm themselves with the facts but instead choose to complain about something they know nothing about, while meanwhile turning people who have done nothing wrong into pariahs in order to pander to the ignorant.

Wyrd - According to the BBC, the mortality (death) rate in the current Ebola outbreak is 70%. Recovery rate is only 30%. So if 184 people were to be infected, then 54 would be the likely number of survivors, not deaths.

How likely it is that this boy would infect the whole school is a different question altogether. Is the visit cancelled entirely or just until they're past any possible incubation period? I do have sympathy with the parents though. It's not impossible for the boy or his family to have unknowingly come into contact with an Ebola sufferer and it's a very scary disease.

Any one of us could unknowingly come into contact with someone who has been in contact with an ebola sufferer, but that is not how ebola is spread.

This child is not afaik in quarantine or under house arrest, he is therefore free to visit the park, the supermarket, any children's activity area, and come into contact with the same children he would be in contact with at the school. Or should we put everyone who comes over here from Siera Leone in quarantine as soon as they touch down on British soil "just in case"? Perhaps we should close the borders to all African incomers, oh and the US as well given there have been cases there, and spain too - in fact best close the borders to Europe given someone could come from spain and enter the UK from another country.
Perhaps these parents should instead have been given a list of

\link{http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/\the facts}

Yes, I know you'd have to actually come into direct contact with an Ebola sufferer who's started to show symptoms in order to catch it. Or any of their bodily fluids.

I would guess that the parents are concerned that early symptoms might be mistaken for those of a milder illness. Assuming they're thinking at all rationally about it.

I am worried about ebola reaching somewhere like Mumbai or that ebola will continue to grow exponentially in West Africa and then start spilling out into other countries. I am filled with sadness about the idea of all the poor children dying alone. I can't help but think about my own children being in that position.

I wonder what rate of importation the UK could actively handle. With only a handful of cases, I'm certain that R0, the amount of people each patient infects, would be close to 0 and we would be fine. But what if other countries don't do so well? The thought of both exponential growth in poorer countries and the risks that implies to me and mine are terrifying and tragic.

I'm not reassured by comparisons to measles. There are plenty of illnesses that in the absence of vaccines infect pretty much everyone over a period of time. Unless R0 remains under 1, a virus will still spread, just more slowly.

I think the world is playing a bad game of space invaders with ebola in west Africa. We're aiming at where it is now, and we need to aim at where it will be by the time we get there. I think we're in uncharted territory and no one can truly make sensible projections at this point.

I'm watching the news closely. My concern at this point is the woman in India who was hospitalized and sent for tests several days ago and from which the have been no results published. I definitely want to see that one come back negative. My greatest wish is to see that exponential curve flatten and stop.

I'm also disturbed by humanity that children are suffering unimaginable horror all alone and what gets people involved is a dog.

Where has Ebola been compared to measles?

I didn't say it was airborne - I said airborne droplets of bodily fluids. A cough or sneeze, into the air, landing on someone or something, which is then touched by someone else. They then touch their eyes, mouth or nose.

It only takes a tiny amount. That's not hysteria, it's science.

WannaBe from your link:

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

Scientists are still unsure whether people can be infected by saliva. It looks like a probably not at present from what I've been reading.

actually, can I retract that Its what I get for posting when my brain isnt awake - its sweat that it doesnt seem to be found in.

Even worse then Shadow.

I don't think he should be kept out of school forever but it seems sensible to apply a 3 week 'quarantine'.

We do it for other much less serious illnesses so itseems ridiculous to not take precautions in this case.

I have no idea how the 'anti' parents were behaving - they may have been over the top and scaremongering but they still have just as much right to be concerned about the health & welfare of their children.

As for calling worried parents 'idiots' I think that's pretty unhelpful, WannaBe. I was concerned enough about MMR to give my DD separate vaccinations which probably also makes me an idiot in your eyes.

Frankly I'm more interested in my daughter's wellbeing than in other people's desire to namecall, and if I were in the situation these parents have been, I would be worried too.

'We do it for other much less serious illnesses so itseems ridiculous to not take precautions in this case.'

Which are those? Genuine question btw as quarantine for 'childhood' diseases only starts once symptomatic, even though unlike Ebola they can be transmitted before symptoms appear. But I don't know the regime for other diseases.

I can't think of any illnesses we quarantine for when there is no documented exposure and no symptoms showing. Even when one sibling has chickenpox the rest of the kids keep going in until they are unwell, even though chickenpox is infectious before the spots appear.

“I don't think he should be kept out of school forever but it seems sensible to apply a 3 week 'quarantine'.

We do it for other much less serious illnesses so itseems ridiculous to not take precautions in this case.” We don’t quarantine for any illnesses which are not yet symptomatic. Even illnesses like chicken pox and measles we only quarantine once symptoms are apparent, and rightly so, even though e.g. cp is contagious for several days before symptoms appear (unlike ebola).

People really do need to take a step back and seriously think about what it is they are proposing here – essentially that anyone from certain countries be ostracised from society for a three week period “just in case”. In so doing you are labelling all people from certain African countries as a risk to our children when this simply is not the case. If we’re not careful we’re going to end up with a situation where everyone who is black will be viewed with suspicion “just in case” they’ve been to one of “those countries” and could pose a risk. Is this the kind of society we want to live in? Perhaps we should give everyone from Siera Leone a bell on entry which they can ring at passers by to declare themselves to be “unclean” as in biblical days.

The death rate from ebola is currently high not because of the strain of the virus but because of the infrastructures of the countries where it has emerged. In the cases where people have been brought back to the UK/US to be treated they have iirc all survived. Death rates from other diseases such as malaria are excrutiatingly high in Africa not because of the illness but because of the infrastructure to deal with it.

And the

\link{http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/case-counts.html\figures}

are also important: Siera Leone for instance has a population of 6 million people. The total deaths from ebola in Siera Leone is 879. The total confirmed cases in Siera Leone is 2455, so actually their death rate is much, much lower than the 70% which has been bandied about on this thread and elsewhere. But 2455 as a percentage of six million is neglidgeable. But the infrastructure of a country needs to be taken into account when looking at these stats – one in eight women die in childbirth in Siera Leone for instance, so you simply cannot commute a figure of a 70% death rate from a country with that kind of infrastructure to one like the UK.

A bit of perspective goes a long way IMO. Whereas hysterical panic achieves nothing.

And no, it is not comparrible to deciding whether or not to vaccinate your child. People choose not to vaccinate their children for any number of reasons – and that choice is generally an informed one. Choosing to complain about a child visiting your school on the basis of where he comes from and the headlines you might have read is nothing short of ignorant and there is nothing informed or intelligent about it.

I think we will also find, now the disease is no longer just affecting a small number of poor insignificant black people in some barely known country in Africa, that a vaccine will now be prioritised and rapidly found. It's amazing what can happen when (relatively) rich Western white people are at risk.

There is a vaccine under development, and trials in humans have begun.

I think we will also find, now the disease is no longer just affecting a small number of poor insignificant black people in some barely known country in Africa, that a vaccine will now be prioritised and rapidly found. It's amazing what can happen when (relatively) rich Western white people are at risk.

That's a bit unfair; up until this epidemic, the disease was extremely rare, affecting a tiny number of people, in very isolated circumstances. Hardly a pressing concern for anyone.