Look, I'm not going to argue with you about whether it's better to be treated in a medical camp in the tropical rainforests of western Africa or a fully staffed and equipped modern hospital in developed nation like the UK. So if you want to go and tell all your friends you won that argument, knock yourself out.When argument fails .....
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Ebola Virus
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LOL - chances are you had MWCHD (man with cold hypochondriac disorder) , a really serious case can mutate into MWCWTHDD (man with cold who thinks he's dying disorder)
I used to be one of those guys who's always "oh I've got flu" every time i got a sniffle - right up to 2004 when i actually got influenza- i can confidently say that manflu doesnt come close to the real thing.
I tried to convince a colleague that man flu was worse than child birth. She still dodges me in the lift 3 years on.....
Sounds like swine flu or Pneumonia...that's Dr Steves considered prognosis. It's a miracle you're alive given shoddy uk hethcare. In Sierra Leone they'd have you on your feet in no time...
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I love these threads. 
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As there is no specific treatment, the treatment for ebola will likely be standard fever measures like fluid/electrolyte replacement and close monitoring of a breadth of vital signs; basically measures which support your physiology while your body fights off the infection.
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Which will be so much better in Blighted than in Africa it's unreal. A bit like H1N1 I'd only expect the elderly/infirm/those with health issues already to die here once hospitalised. For the bulk it will just be a nasty experience
Yes, the tech and resources to deal with these things will be orders of magnitude better in the UK. But I don't think anyone seriously thinks they wouldn't be. I think Gramps must know he's clutching at straws by claiming he'd rather be treated in the Liberian jungle. Either that or he has a piece missing from his brain.
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Yeah but he won't be able to get his favourite fruit bat fricase marinaded in chimp brain in the Uk or the special condensed milk which has been blessed by the local witch doctor and can 'cure'* Ebola - plus when he dies his family members won't be able to carry his infected body through the streets on a litter so all his neighbours can kiss it good bye - clearly liberia is a much better bet
*that's "cure" in the same way as sex with a virgin can cure aids :bang:
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I think it's his corruption of Blighty.
norters
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That's cute.
Bassit
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Agreed, but then i didn't say or imply any different.
And a bloody good read, no ?
Hysterical rubbish !?. it was a book based on true events as it states at the start of the book, and i think we have all seen enough films to understand what based on true events means.
Again by the way, i didn't say anything different, i stated a line from the book which as you already know also didn't say what you implied above.
Bassit
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And how many will die if the virus became as prevalent as malaria ?
The truth of this virus is that it is a very scary one (mainly for the 3rd world country's) and no one yet knows it origins, hence the media interest, the media is doing no different that what it always does so why the big surprise ?
The truth of this virus is that it is a very scary one (mainly for the 3rd world country's) and no one yet knows it origins, hence the media interest, the media is doing no different that what it always does so why the big surprise ?
We know quite a bit about this virus,it's believe to been around for millions of years,the first outbreak in humans was in 1976 in the Congo,and the outbreak start in remote areas,and where conflict has had a big effect on the area health infrastructure.
Hollywood did a big film around it years ago called Outbreak.
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Based very very loosely on true events - the only outbreak of Ebola in the states was E Reston in a monkey house - E reston being Asymptomatic in humans - and its description of symptoms etc was indeed hysterical rubbish - people don't melt from the inside, chunks of skin and flesh don't come away in peoples hands, and apart from Ebola zaire mayinga (which kills so rapidly it doesnt spread much) it isn't airbourne
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this is what you get for getting your info from fiction rather than from the WHO and CDC
its a natural disease , first documented in 1976 close to the ebola river hence the name , for a while we didn't know what its host was (hence all the hoo haa in both hot zone, executive orders, and outbreak) however it is now known that the host is a certain species of Fruit Bat , and the initial transmission from animals to humans comes from eating bush meat.
Therefore it can't become as widespread as malaria because it isn't vectored by mosquitos (trials show that the virus doesnt live long enough out of the body to be transfered via a mosquito buiting a suffeerer then biting someone else)
If you want to scare yourself have a look at the WHO website for other diseases - for example Congo and Crimea Heamoragic Fever , which is spread by tick bites - currently not known above thr 50th paralell because of the limit on the range of the principal vector , but could be spreading north due to global warming extending the range - no known cure and a 40% fatality rate.
or the various family of Hanta viruses , spread by mice and other rodents - 65% mortality rate, and no known cure
or the various Avian Flu's (Its not just H5N1 - there are 6 avain flu strains known to infect people) - if any of those mutate to person to person transfer we'd be deeply in the crap
or about 100 other options for that matter .... we're doomed i say doooomed
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Bassit
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A quote taken form the WHO website "In Africa, fruit bats are believed to be the natural hosts of Ebola virus. The virus is transmitted from wildlife to people through contact with infected fruit bats, or through intermediate hosts, such as monkeys, apes, or pigs that have themselves become infected through contact with bat saliva or faeces."
Your version seems also seems to be based loosely on (not quite) true events.
I know, i was simply pointing out that his comparison wasn't like for like and if ebola was as prevalent as malaria then the death rate would be much higher, i am surprised i actually have to explain this to you.
You are worse than the newspapers for blowing things out of perspective, i have already said i am not scared about it and i am quite aware that even if the infection did reach here it would be controlled quite easily, i have no interest in any media scare stories, i haven't read a newspaper for probably 20years (and didn't know the mirror had run a story) and don't really watch tv so you are barking up the wrong tree here, it is just a subject that i have followed with interest since reading the hot zone and reading the WHO web site a long time ago.
And another quote from the WHO website.
"Ebola virus disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) is a severe, often fatal illness, with a case fatality rate of up to 90%. It is one of the world’s most virulent diseases.The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. During an outbreak, those at higher risk of infection are health workers, family members and others in close contact with sick people and deceased patients."
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If you arent scared about it why are you wittering about the hotzone being fact , when it clearly isnt ?
indeed - but you cleaerly don't understand the diference between what the WHO have said here - Case Fatality rate up to 90% and what the papers are reporting and gramps quoted earlier " a mortality rate of 90%"
The former means that in some outbreaks the fatality rate has been as high as 90% but in many cases it was lower (hence up to) , the latter would imply that anyone who catches it has a 1 in 10 chance of survival which is rubbish - as Ghoti said earlier the actualy average mortality rate as a percentage of those infected is about 56%
The really sailent bit of that quote though is the last bit
thus the majority of the population are not at risk if they avoid those factors - which is why it has spread so slowly even in africa and why media hysteria about thhe risk isnt justified. Yes its a nasty disease - but there are a lot of nasty diseases in the world many of which are a substantially greater risk to the health of the average person in the uk
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Really ? thats odd because the WHO say the following
and
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Why don't i understand what is said, the phrase "with a case fatality rate of up to 90%" isn't that hard to comprehend, i haven't quoted Gramps or the newspapers ??
and i don't seem to be the one struggling to grasp the meaning of words, such as potential, Believed and considered.
Some of us do actually care about people other than their own country, i'd suggest this bee you have in your bonnet is tainted by what you have read in the newspaper, although i cant be sure as i didn't read it, but why are you only bothered about the damage to this country, people are dying from this.
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You say you care about others people,but seem to write of those effected by malaria,maybe not as glamorous as Ebola
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gramps
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People are dying from all sorts of things - 600 deaths from ebola is very small beer if you want to be concerned about deaths in the third world. - if you limit the feild to viruses AIDS is probably the principal killer ( The WHO give the estmated deaths from AIDs in 2012 at 1.6 million worldwide 73% of which were in sub saharan africa )
Malaria (parasite) killed about 627,000 most of whom were african children
Cholera (bacteria) kills about 100,000 people every year mostly in the third world
Typhoid (Bacteria) kills about 200,000 people every year mostly in the third world
and so forth (100s more examples) and thats without looking at famine/malnutrition and war
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But on the TV a lot of local Doctors who deal with malaria on an daily basic,were making the comparison.
Ebola is very localised in a very small area presently. If Ebola was as widespread as Malaria then it would be doing a pretty good job of reducing the malaria deaths because there would be significantly less people alive to suffer from it.
Even assuming 1st world medical care can bring down the mortality rate to 50% from the 90% currently, the continued spread of Ebola is not good news.
I can't even imagine the scenes if it broke out in India or other more heavily populated/poorly sanitised region, it would be an utter catastrophe, millions dying.
Malaria has killed 1/5 all the humans that have ever lived on this planet,at the moment Ebola is big news and scare people the same as Aids did a few years ago,soon it wont be news anymore we will have moved on to the next story.
During the time between each outbreak did you think about,and wonder if this could come back again ?
Not very often, but yes. I've also wondered if something on the scale of the great historical pandemics could happen again.
It could happen again,but i doubt it would be Ebola,i have travel to some very remote area in the world and have caught a few nasty illness, Malaria twice,and a very nasty illness on the Uganda/Congo border.
The main thing with anything like this that make it worst,is fear, ignorant, and panic
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All this talk of first world medicine pre supposes it is stopped at the borders, and thats the issue in the UK, it's not as likely to be stopped there as Cameron and Co are claiming. It's incubation period is 3 weeks, so an infected person could be in the UK for 2 weeks and 6 days before they become symptomatic.
Yes, it may be difficult to transmit, in a comfie home in Suburbia, not quite as difficult in some of the inner London homes I've visited, where the loo is full and might have been cleaned in the last 12 months and sinks are used as urinals. Yes places like that exist.
In those circumstances I'm afraid it's easy to see how it could become a problem.
By the time it becomes symptomatic it could well have have been spread considerably.
The UK isn't set up for responding, in spite of what the press and Government preach. Not just from the medical point of view either. It's also likely to lead to public disorder and panic. Agreed unnecessarily, but it really doesn't matter if there's a good reason for it or not.
Yes, it may be difficult to transmit, in a comfie home in Suburbia, not quite as difficult in some of the inner London homes I've visited, where the loo is full and might have been cleaned in the last 12 months and sinks are used as urinals. Yes places like that exist.
In those circumstances I'm afraid it's easy to see how it could become a problem.
By the time it becomes symptomatic it could well have have been spread considerably.
The UK isn't set up for responding, in spite of what the press and Government preach. Not just from the medical point of view either. It's also likely to lead to public disorder and panic. Agreed unnecessarily, but it really doesn't matter if there's a good reason for it or not.
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An avian flu could do that - when you think how far and fast swine flu spread - it was a pandemic but not a particularly serious one as it wasnt very virrulent and responded well to antivirals. If H5N1 (or one of the other avian flu's) mutated to spread person to person in the same manner we could easily see a global pandemic with millions of deaths (rather like 1918 )
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I'll bet you one million great British pounds that there is not an Ebola outbreak in this country.
It will be because infection control, sanitation and hygiene practises are in a different league in the UK than they are in rural communities in tropical jungles.
It's very unlikely that there will be a major ebola outbreak in the UK.