Questions and Answers on Ebola

[Jim Beaux]

Our government is drastically fumbling the ball on communicating the dangers we are facing with Ebola. The estimated deaths are staggering and the question should be asked: why hasnt CDC been more proactive in publicizing basic preventative measures regarding Ebola?

The first line below, "If you must travel to an area affected by the 2014 Ebola outbreak " was a wake up for me, many of us are certainly in the "affected area" and are in danger of exposure.

At a minimum you should be carrying an alcohol based hand sanitizer and be aware that any place that has been exposed to body fluids poses a possible danger such as public restrooms. Flushing the urinal, touching the towel dispenser, touching the door handle, and then scratching your nose or rubbing your eye can do it....and dont forget about the cuts & cuticles on your hands.

Those who show possible symptoms should not go to a med facility and expose others, but phone the hospital and advise of the symptoms. The decision may be for them to come to the patient.

Taking precautions is not only about protecting ourselves, but also our families.

How do I protect myself against Ebola?

If you must travel to an area affected by the 2014 Ebola outbreak, protect yourself by doing the following:

Wash hands frequently or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Avoid contact with blood and body fluids of any person, particularly someone who is sick.
Do not handle items that may have come in contact with an infected person’s blood or body fluids.
Do not touch the body of someone who has died from Ebola.
Do not touch bats and nonhuman primates or their blood and fluids and do not touch or eat raw meat prepared from these animals.
Avoid hospitals in West Africa where Ebola patients are being treated. The U.S. Embassy or consulate is often able to provide advice on medical facilities.
Seek medical care immediately if you develop fever (temperature of 101.5°F/ 38.6°C) and any of the other following symptoms: headache, muscle pain, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, or unexplained bruising or bleeding.
Limit your contact with other people until and when you go to the doctor. Do not travel anywhere else besides a healthcare facility.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/ ... ca/qa.html


Any comments, suggestions or clarifications ?

[Jumping Frog]

One issue I have with the CDC in general is I do not trust them to give accurate information. I believe they will let their desire to minimize public anxiety or panic lead them to soft-peddling the actual dangers.

If this is so easily controllable with basic medical precautions instead of "spacesuits", why have 81 doctors already died? Surely they were aware enough to use gowns, gloves, masks, and wash their hands?

[baldeagle]

Here's a woman in Africa who saved three of four family members by using trashbags and tape and observing basic cleanliness. - http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/25/health/ebola-fatu-family/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Firestone has a company town in Liberia. No one in the town has gotten ebola due to their procedures, and they are treating infected persons every day who come in to their town from the neighboring capital city of Monrovia. http://hotair.com/archives/2014/10/07/i ... ts-failed/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have, for many years, always used paper towels to open restroom doors and flush toilets. I thoroughly wash my hands with soap and water, then dry them with paper towels, then use a dry paper towel to open the door. If you knew how much bacteria was on the handles, you would do the same.

Ebola is not even in the top ten deadliest viruses list. It is the deadliest virus in the world based on kill rate. It has a 50% kill rate, but it burns itself out before it can spread massively. (Last night they announced that it has burned itself out in Nigeria - there are no more cases of Ebola there.) The deadliest virus in history is smallpox. It kills 80%-90% of its victims during outbreaks and is responsible for the deaths of millions and millions of people. It killed about 50% of the native population of Australia during its early colonization period. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/807600" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The point is, you have to keep things in perspective. Ebola is obviously a threat, but it's not going to decimate the population of the US unless it mutates into something far more deadly than what it is now. Ebola strikes terror in people because of movies that have played up the hemorrhagic aspect of it by portraying actors with blood coming out of their nostrils and dying horrifying deaths while portraying it as having a 100% kill rate among its victims.

[Maxwell]

Jumping Frog,

You and I both know that no matter how educated a person is on the subject that the first and immediate reaction is "I still don't want to get infected (and I may panic to insure I don't) !

Human nature is human nature.

Max

[Rex B]

Missing from the list: Avoid dogs or other pets associated with an ebola victim.

[Beiruty]

Oh, Why the first respondents are using Gas Masks?

[Jim Beaux]

Interesting interview.

One of the things it conveyed is that in the early years Ebola's impact wasnt as big as it first struck in sparsely populated , low mobility areas & quickly died out. Now it is appearing in more densely populated, highly mobile areas.

Another article I read discussed the possibility of 3rd world victims entering the U.S. through the unsecured border of Texas seeking medical care.

A concern I have is we dont know what we have & the powers that be arent responding effectively. Case in point, only now the gov plans to initiate screening JFK arrivals this coming Saturday, and others "some time next week".

'In 1976 I discovered Ebola - now I fear an unimaginable tragedy'

a mutation that would allow Ebola patients to live a couple of weeks longer is certainly possible and would be advantageous for the virus. But that would allow Ebola patients to infect many, many more people than is currently the case.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/o ... t-outbreak

[The Annoyed Man]

My wife and I added a few boxes of nitrile gloves and face-masks to our prepping inventory. The need for gloves is obvious, but the masks, not so much. So far as anybody knows for sure, Ebola is not airborne ..... except possibly in the microscopic droplets of a sneeze or cough. I figure that the masks will perform two functions: 1) protection against the sneezes and coughs of Ebola carriers, and 2) a simple barrier against splashed bodily fluids if we have to handle or clean up after infected people.

But even then, the masks and gloves are not a guarantee. The nurse in Spain who is fighting Ebola right now admitted that she had accidentally touched her own face while taking off her gloves; so even a contaminated touch can do it. Her duties had involved changing the diapers, bedpan, and bed linen of an infected priest.

baldeagle is absolutely right that Ebola tends to burn itself out fairly quickly. This has been known about the disease for decades now. Each generation of the strain causing a particular outbreak is less virulent than the generation preceeding it; which means that even if it went completely uncontrolled and spread like wildfire, within a few weeks it would lose its ability to infect anyone else. The death toll would be horrible, but it is NOT a "species-killer".

The biggest problem with Ebola these days is that it is no longer locally confined. It spreads at the speed of a jetliner. Before global travel became so easy, outbreaks were confined to the locals where it originated, and the disease burned itself out before it could spread too far geographically.

One of the most prolific means of transmission is during the handling of the dead. The corpse must be double-bagged in leakproof bodybags, with all IV lines, feeding tubes, endotracheal tubes, etc., left in place. Cremation is recommended.

[The Annoyed Man]

Oh, Why the first respondents are using Gas Masks?

That is mostly to protect the face from contact with bodily fluids.....just as with the transparent "splash shields" that surgeons and nurses wear in the O.R.

Aircraft cleaning crews at Newark Airport in New Jersey have gone on strike because they say they are afraid of catching Ebola from cleaning airliners: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/26744552/p ... ers-strike

Profiteering at its best.

[baldeagle]

If you want to understand the risks of Ebola, think about bodily fluids. That's how it's transmitted - contact with bodily fluids. So, using a toilet used by an infected person could result in contact with their bodily fluids. Laying in a bed they have laid in. Eating food they've eaten or using uncleaned plates or utensils they have touched. Having them sneeze on you. Spitting. Sweat. Bleeding. Once the infected fluids have been deposited, they are viable for about six days although its potency is degrading over that time period. So, if an infected person touches a toilet flush handle with a sweaty hand, that handle could potentially infect others for up to six days. The greatest danger is anything that's been in persistent contact with the infected person, such as clothing, bedding, etc. where the chances of bodily fluids like sweat being deposited is very high. Bleach kills it. Soap and water will kill it. If you're not a consistently clean person, you need to think about changing your habits. Grab some toilet paper to use to flush the toilet so you don't touch the surface with your hand. Wash your hands thoroughly after using the bathroom. Don't share towels with other people. If an infected person spits on the ground, that spot can infect for several days. Stepping on it with your shoes will put some of the contaminated fluid on your shoes. Now you will transfer it everywhere you walk, although the risk decreases with each contact with the ground or floor surface. That's why it's so critical to thoroughly disinfect and clean rooms that an infected person has been in. Ideally everything associated with them would be burned (clothing, bedding, towels, bandages, needles, etc.)

[92f-fan]

Lets try to be sensible
And Cite some references for these concerns

As was stated well before - we have MUCH larger concerns when it comes to infectious diseases.
You will be better served educating everyone to make sure they get immunized than to take drastic precautions in every day life.

Wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, common sense stuff.

The Flu will kill thousands more people and is spread in similar ways.

Billions of Dollars are being spent to battle a problem that so far has killed one person in the US. Society would be MUCH better off spending that $$ finding treatments and cures for diabetes, heart disease and crappy drivers.

"Research published in the Journal of Microbiology in 2010 found the virus is capable of living in dried blood on various surfaces -- such as plastic and glass -- for as long as three weeks in low temperature environments. However, experiments also found no virus samples survived on plastic, metal or glass surfaces at room temperature."

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ebola-how- ... -1.2041584" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" How long does the Ebola virus live on surfaces?

We’ve been hearing for months that Ebola virus has been shown to survive for days on surfaces, but it’s important to consider a few things.

First off, viruses do not survive long on porous surfaces, such as fabrics for example. They can live longer on hard surfaces, such as metal and glass. As well, there have been lab studies showing that dried samples of Ebola virus can survive for days; but other studies have found the virus doesn’t survive more than a few hours outside of a host.

It’s important to note that in the tests where the virus lived for days, they were kept in the dark, at low temperatures, around 4 degrees Celsius, which helped the viruses survive.

In real life, the Ebola virus is sensitive to light, heat and low humidity, so it’s less likely to live long in environments such as brightly lit airplanes or hospital waiting rooms, both of which are scrubbed down regularly.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ebola-how- ... z3FfYu4Av8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

[Jim Beaux]

Read this article.

Do not dismiss the dangers of Ebola. There is no cure. Considering our dense & mobile populations we are sitting in a perfect storm....and flu season is nearing.

Speaking of suits, we’ve all seen the pictures. Rubber gloves are adequate for AIDS and hepatitis, a simple mask stops Tuberculosis, but this requires space suits, just keep that in mind when you think its no big deal.

The biggest part of the discussion is how Ebola is spread. I will say two things on the topic, no, it is not airborne, and yes, basic hygiene plays a HUGE factor. But while on the topic of whether it is or is not airborne, the definition of an airborne contagion is one that can freely float in the air, survive lengths of time, and infect someone else. VERY few things fit in this category, most have been eradicated, Polio, Small Pox, Tuberculosis. Things that are also NOT airborne, are the flu and the cold. For the flu, you have to come into direct contact with the patients body fluids. How then, do you explain why people catch it and have no idea how. Well for one, people can spread it before they show symptoms, just like Ebola, and one other HUGE factor…droplets….let that word really sink in. The virus may not be airborne, but the droplets are.

http://dtolar.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/ ... rspective/

[rotor]

Read this article.

Do not dismiss the dangers of Ebola. There is no cure. Considering our dense & mobile populations we are sitting in a perfect storm....and flu season is nearing.

Speaking of suits, we’ve all seen the pictures. Rubber gloves are adequate for AIDS and hepatitis, a simple mask stops Tuberculosis, but this requires space suits, just keep that in mind when you think its no big deal.

The biggest part of the discussion is how Ebola is spread. I will say two things on the topic, no, it is not airborne, and yes, basic hygiene plays a HUGE factor. But while on the topic of whether it is or is not airborne, the definition of an airborne contagion is one that can freely float in the air, survive lengths of time, and infect someone else. VERY few things fit in this category, most have been eradicated, Polio, Small Pox, Tuberculosis. Things that are also NOT airborne, are the flu and the cold. For the flu, you have to come into direct contact with the patients body fluids. How then, do you explain why people catch it and have no idea how. Well for one, people can spread it before they show symptoms, just like Ebola, and one other HUGE factor…droplets….let that word really sink in. The virus may not be airborne, but the droplets are.

http://dtolar.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/ ... rspective/

I agree 100%. Our government is doing nothing to prevent an influx of sick patients to the U.S. Since we know that patients are not infective until they are febrile ( so they say) taking the temps of people flying into the U.S. is absolutely worthless. This will not prevent one infected but still asymptomatic patient from getting in. Entrance from outbreak countries should be barred completely. My wife read somewhere that the perfect plot would be for the ISIL people to send a bunch of suicide people into Liberia, get them infected and then bring them into the U.S. to spread the disease. That would be worse than a nuclear threat. We need to close our borders and stop all entrance of people from infected areas. Stopping them in the U.S. is not the answer, they need to stop all flights from the infected areas. Perhaps it is already too late.

[rbwhatever1]

I wonder how long ebola would live in a wallet, purse or a cash register...