OT: Ebola

[The Natural Philosopher]

On the faint offchance Ebola is not contained, this is something people ought to read.

[Adrian]

Certainly a strong argument in favour of maintaining, if not increasing, the overseas aid budget and support for the various charitable groups.

[harryagain]

Time to stop all travel to/from Africa. Aid is a waste of time, it goes straight into the pockets of the corrupt elite.

You can't believe the stories about how the disease can be "contained" in UK/Europe. They couldn't contain the last disease from Africa, AIDS, and that's a lot harder to catch.

[Nightjar]

[Adrian]

On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 08:04:05 +0100, Nightjar >>

...and then there's Harry, who thinks the answer is to somehow seal off an entire continent and approaching 20% of the world's population...

Bless.

[Nightjar]

We will have to call you Harry the Pigeon from now on:

A study by the University if Lisbon a few years ago showed that foreign aid generally produces a reduction in corruption. They found two main mechanisms for this. The first was simply where the conditions upon which the aid was granted severely limited the scope for corruption. The second was that, by alleviating public revenue shortages, it facilitates better salaries (or indeed being paid at all) for public employees, which was often the motive behind the corruption in the first place.

The 2009 flu pandemic killed over 14,000 people, as compared to around

3,000 so far in the current Ebola outbreak, but that was contained successfully.

Nobody knows where or how AIDS originated. It was first identified in Manhattan in 1979, which has lead to a theory that it arose from an experimental vaccine for Hepatitis B that was administered to around

1,000 gay men in Manhattan in 1978 and 1979. At the time, it was unknown in Africa and did not become epidemic there until 1982. No scientific study has upheld the claims that AIDs originated in monkeys or apes.

[Tim Streater]

In article ,

[Nightjar]

[Chris Hogg]

[charles]

[Dave Liquorice]

What was the mortality rate for that flu? No where near the at least

50% for this Ebola outbreak.

Probably the most alarming bit from the previous links was the reported doubling of *reported* cases every three weeks:

Today 8,000

23 Oct 16,000 13 Nov 32,000 4 Dec 64,000 25 Dec 128,000

The odd single case in a developed country won't be a problem but how many isolation beds does the UK have? We don't the the TB isolation hospitals any more...

[Nightjar]

[Nightjar]

Difficult to tell, as the official figures only show those who were confirmed as having had the disease by laboratory testing. Some estimates suggest that the real death toll could have been over 200,000, or double that if deaths from other causes exacerbated by the flu are included. The death rate also varied enormously by country, the CDC believe that the death toll was worst in Africa and South East Asia, but there is insufficient data to confirm that. Where there is data, it shows that places in central and southern American had death rates up to

20 times that in Australasia and Europe.

Which is fairly benign, compared to some outbreaks. Mortality rates have varied between 25% and 90% in previous outbreaks.

Which does not, necessarily, indicate an equivalent increase in actual cases. A large influx of medical workers into countries with weak medical systems is bound to produce a large increase in the identification and reporting of a disease.

There are two dedicated high level isolation beds in the UK. However, my two closest hospitals each have six isolation beds, which could, in an emergency, be upgraded to high level. It seems unlikely that we will have to put up Portakabin hospitals in the middle of Dartmoor if there is an outbreak in the UK.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 10:21:29 +0100, Nightjar > The odd single case in a developed country won't be a problem but how

There's another detail of the US case that's worth noting...

He apparently started showing symptoms on the 24th, and went to hospital on the 26th. Nurses asked him if he'd had exposure to Ebola, he told them he'd just come from Liberia - but they discharged him anyway, due to a "communication error"... He then returned to hospital and was admitted on the 28th.

[JimK]

/There's another detail of the US case that's worth noting...

He apparently started showing symptoms on the 24th, and went to hospital on the 26th. Nurses asked him if he'd had exposure to Ebola, he told them he'd just come from Liberia - but they discharged him anyway, due to a "communication error"... He then returned to hospital and was admitted on the 28th. /q

Oh ffs the thread the human race dangles from is junior nurses knowledge of geography....

"We're doomed! doomed I tell ye captain mainwaring...." roll eyes etc

Jim K

[Tim Watts]

Some small barren island I would have thought - otherwise animals will be surely at risk of becoming a transmission vector?

Thinking rats finding their way into the high level contamination medical waste bins...

[Mike Barnes]

Gruinard?

[Tim Watts]

I was thinking of that...

[Tim Streater]

Rockall.

[mike]

Attempting to pwn Harry whilst wearing a tin-foil hat yourself...?

I wonder if anyone has ever seen a copy of the treaty Eisenhower signed with the extra-terrestrials?