Infectiousness does affect contagiousness. All things equal, the less virions it takes to spread the infection, the more contagious the virus is.
When the CDC says ebola spreads through direct contact with "blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola"... They're not exactly lying, but the definition of "direct contact" is misleading the public, because we know that ebola can be spread by aerosolized droplets.
Cutting through the semantics of what is considered airborne and direct contact: one virion riding on a 1.2 micrometer droplet that lands in a healthy person's eye, mouth, or nasal passage is all it takes (droplets up to 100 micrometers are generated during a sneeze).... I don't know about you, but if someone sneezes and gives me ebola, it's airborne in my book.
Can you get ebola by touching an object that has been in contact with an ebola patient? Inconclusive, but knowing ebola's survivability outside the host, and the low number of virions needed to initiate infection, here's some anecdotal evidence:
NBC Cameraman Believes He Contracted Ebola While Cleaning Infected Car.
There is a reason why hazmat crews are called in to to spray bleach every single object ebola patients touches... is it because ebola can persist long outside the host, and that touching an ebola-sweat laden doorknob and touching your face will result in death? You don't think they do that with something harmless like HIV do you?
There is a reason why nurses and doctors who of all people know about the proper protection against ebola, still get infected by it. For all their proper protection, one virion is all it takes.
Right. It's incredibly infectious. But for the general public, it's highly unlikely to be exposed to even one virus particle. Because an infected person doesn't shed any virus until the symptoms start. In a first world nation people are likely to seek treatment shortly after the symptoms start, limiting the exposure for the general public.
It almost seems like the virus is targeted at care-givers based on how rapidly infectious/contagious the victims become after symptoms start.
It almost seems like the virus is targeted at care-givers based on how rapidly infectious/contagious the victims become after symptoms start.
What I find interesting about how she merely touched her face with the gloves is that she wasn't actively sucking on the virus like some other posters here were saying that you had to do in order to contract the disease. This thing is deadly and extremely contagious.
This guy was on dialysis and a ventilator. Both of those spread more contaminants....and that dialysis machine probably had to be tossed...another $10k down the drain (probably billed to the taxpayers) because that idiot came to the US. The ventilator catches the disease in water vapor and makes it even easier to transmit if touched or if that water vapor leaks out. In both cases, the equipment needs to be incinerated.
Once again, people keep saying it's "incredibly infectious" and somehow wishfully separate that from the term "incredibly contagious". If you read what I wrote, ebola is incredibly contagious via aerosolized droplets.Right. It's incredibly infectious. But for the general public, it's highly unlikely to be exposed to even one virus particle. Because an infected person doesn't shed any virus until the symptoms start. In a first world nation people are likely to seek treatment shortly after the symptoms start, limiting the exposure for the general public.
This R0 number is possibly underestimated/wrong for several reasons. Firstly, the past Ebola outbreaks are relegated to remote villages in Africa which burned itself out in the infection, and the sample sizes are too small. Secondly, the current R0 is derived from under-reported statistics provided by the WHO and the understaffed medical centers in Africa by several orders of magnitude.
The care-givers 9 of 10 times are family members.It almost seems like the virus is targeted at care-givers based on how rapidly infectious/contagious the victims become after symptoms start.
Negative. It's been done with all the patients treated in US except the one that died in Dallas.
He did not receive ZMapp. The limited supply of ZMapp meant that first priority dosage goes out to infected medical personnel first.A bit off-topic: Why did the Liberian guy die when all the other ebola patients that came from Africa survived? Was it because he did not have the medical insurance so they did not give him the anti-ebola drug?
He did not receive ZMapp. The limited supply of ZMapp meant that first priority dosage goes out to infected medical personnel first.
2 people?
2 people?
Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the company that makes ZMapp, says the drug's supplies are exhausted and that it takes months to make even a small batch.
People touch their faces a lot. The skin can probably keep it out, but it's the hand touching the face, then rubbing it into your eyes, picking your nose, sucking your fingers, maybe having a meal after you washed your hands and assumed you're in the clear.
I have no clue how drugs are made, but it seems like months is a long time.
That's optimistic. It depends how sick they become. Many people continue on with their daily routine even if they are sick. Most people don't think, "I have ebola, I need to go to the doctor..." Especially older men are stubborn and try to get over it before seeking medical attention.
We can hope that people exposed to it will rush somewhere to quarantine themselves. I just see those without insurance or the stubborn ones lagging and not getting treatment.
We live in an age where taking a sick day is sin. I've come in sick for jobs, didn't think it was a big deal, and even thought I was being a "good employee" for working through sickness.
Ha read that wrong. Still 2 treated with zmapp.
I have no clue how drugs are made, but it seems like months is a long time.
the drug was still very very much experimental and in development.
Drugs are in development all the time for all kinds of diseases. These things are not necessarily production ready. Tiny amounts are made in order to test and proceed through various levels of approval... more testing... etc.
It is completely expected that there would be almost no supply of this stuff because it is still in development. It is also completely expected that production methods are still in development as well and likely not easily scaled.
It is also highly likely that the experimental drugs did absolutely nothing to save people. Experimental drugs fail constantly... wayy more often than they succeed. What works in a mouse rarely works in a human, nonetheless that is a path we use to develop drugs because it's the best we have. End of the day, it probably didn't matter one bit for people who got the drug vs people who didn't. On the other hand maybe the drugs helped. There is no way to know until proper clinical trials are performed on a drug that is production scale. Right now talk about experimental drugs is a bit silly and hints a bit at attempting to make people feel safer since there's a potential drug on the horizon.
Clinical trials are done for a reason.
Here’s how ZMapp is made: First a genetically engineered virus is injected into a tobacco plant. The plant then produces antibodies. Unlike earlier attempts in mice, the tobacco plant can produce enough antibodies for dozens of doses
“As the plant starts turning yellow, ’cause it’s going to die from the viral infection, once you see that the plant has gotten to that point, the guys in Kentucky harvest the leaf material,” explains Dr. Charles Arntzen, Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University.
Cloned “humanized” antibodies are separated from the plant, purified, and turned into doses. In a patient, those antibodies attach themselves to Ebola’s harmful cells and destroy the virus.
Trouble is, the whole process takes time, as long as six months per dose.
But isn't that the problem? You don't actually have the virus until day 21. If you're a caregiver with family and it's day 21 you could have potentially spread something you didn't know you had to your school aged children. They go to school essentially as time bombs where the flu is as common as seeing animals in the zoo. You don't know anyone has Ebola because you assumed it was the flu.
Before you know it it's going to spread and spread and spread.
They say the US has the best medical care. We also have some very overworked people in clinics and hospitals. Mistakes are made all the time.
Government it's time to do your job and shut this down before it gets really out of hand.
Once again, people keep saying it's "incredibly infectious" and somehow wishfully separate that from the term "incredibly contagious". If you read what I wrote, ebola is incredibly contagious via aerosolized droplets.
The notion that an infected person doesn't shed any virus is another ghastly public generalization of how infections spread. In epidemiology, there is a bell-curve distribution of the shedding of viral particles, it just so happens that the highest frequency of viral particle shed overlap with the symptomatic phase.
In other words, asymptomatic hosts do shed viral particles, and will continue to do so for some time after their health has improved.
As for your first world nation speculation, there seems to be West Africans in the thousands in the first world. Do you think West African refugees would head straight to the hospital right at the moment they notice a fever or runny nose? Or would they hide at home away from immigration officials, hoping that this will blow over, to be taken care of and inadvertently exposing numerous family members to ebola?
From an anthropology point of view, Some people would rather die of Ebola than stop hugging sick loved ones. Even in the first world, the notion that most people are going to seek treatment for the slightest symptom does not hold up to reality.
Dallas' response was almost completely overwhelmed by tracking the contacts of Thomas Eric Duncan, the healthcare system of the west is barely prepared for the ticking time bomb : http://www.nationalnursesunited.org...dards-for-protective-equipment-including-haz/
The level of public hubris and the euphemistic CDC response is astounding. As someone in the epidemiology/microbiology field, ebola is defcon 5 and CDC so far has chosen to play politics in their euphemistic statement on ebola contagion, rather than informing the public that this thing has the potential to spread in the western world as it has been exponentially in Africa
This R0 number is possibly underestimated/wrong for several reasons. Firstly, the past Ebola outbreaks are relegated to remote villages in Africa which burned itself out in the infection, and the sample sizes are too small. Secondly, the current R0 is derived from under-reported statistics provided by the WHO and the understaffed medical centers in Africa by several orders of magnitude.
Straight from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6303a1.htm?s_cid=su6303a1_w
The care-givers 9 of 10 times are family members.