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"The infection takes three–five days to incubate in people before they fall ill, and another three–five days before, in 80 per cent of the cases, the victims di
by azazqadir 11y ago
"The infection takes three–five days to incubate in people before they fall ill, and another three–five days before, in 80 per cent of the cases, the victims die."
Takes at least 6 days for the infected to die. That's a really deadly disease. Even Ebola was not that fast. The WHO website mentioned that it takes 21 days for Ebola patient to show just the symptoms, which could mean it would still take few more days for the patient to die.
- JimmyM 11y agoThis is partly why there have been rival Ebola-like 'haemorrhagic plague' theories of the Black Death, although they're still niche theories. Confusing matters is the fact that some accounts of symptoms make it sound like Pneumonic plague was also affecting victims, and killing them even faster. Possibly there was some perfect storm of plagues spreading through multiple vectors at once, with haemorrhagic pneumonic and bubonic plagues striking at different places with different frequencies. Without a means to distinguish between the plagues (and other diseases), pretty much any death caused by communicable disease would at the time be considered part of the Black Death.
- czechdeveloper 11y agoDoesn't that make Ebola more deadly? 21 days walking around, spreading it.
- azazqadir 11y agoThat's another way of thinking. But a deadly disease is one where death is certain and fatality rate is high. You could say that Ebola had higher chances of spreading, along with being deadly.
- yakshemash 11y agoTransmission of Ebola occurs only after patient develops the symptoms of the disease anywhere between 2 days and 3 weeks after infection [1]. By then most patients are not in a condition to be "walking around". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease
- czechdeveloper 11y agoOk. I was later thinking that this might be the case. Thank you for finding it.
- cm2187 11y agoMy understanding is that Ebola is not very contagious. You need physical contact for the disease to spread. Which is why there was some many victims among nurses and doctors. But also why it is unlikely you will be contaminated if you sit 5 hours in a plane next to someone carrying the disease.
- hanspeter 11y agoAnd the interesting thing about Ebola is that while it's not very contagious it is extremely infectious. Which means that you need contact with just a few virus particles to be infected.
- cm2187 11y agoAnd then it's game over, low survival rate. Which makes it scary but not very dangerous.
- nonbel 11y agoI would bet the deadliness of Ebola has been overstated (at least by a little, probably by a lot). Like any infection, many people who get it are probably asymptomatic, and until recently the vast majority of people tested for it were most definitely symptomatic. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/ebola-study-finds-women-guinea-appear-immune-virus http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/ebola-study-fin...
- Fomite 11y agoIt turns out its not actually all that infectious either. It's just very, very hard to sustain not having contact with infectious fluid for very long.
- pingec 11y agoEbola can be quite fast. 4 to 10 days incubation period and then death may occur in the next 6 to 16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease
- rmc 11y agoDiseases which kill immediately upon contact don't tend to spread. It's the ones that sit silently and don't harm you that spread everywhere (e.g. HIV)