4 ms·

Here's a thought experiment: Ebola is extremely deadly - deadly things are bad, we want to either treat, or eradicate Ebola. However, one of the reasons why we

Here's a thought experiment: Ebola is extremely deadly - deadly things are bad, we want to either treat, or eradicate Ebola. However, one of the reasons why we haven't all died from Ebola is the fact that it's so deadly. Deadly viruses don't reproduce and spread as efficiently as less deadly viruses. There are a few reasons for this, but one reason is that with Ebola you know you're sick, you can't physically move around, and you can't really shed virus before you're symptomatic. If we treat Ebola to the point of it being attenuated, but not eradicated, could we wind up in a situation where it actually spreads more easily because of the treatment? People might feel on the mend, but still be shedding virus, and go out to public places and spread the disease. Note: I'm not saying this for sure would happen, and that it's a reason not to treat Ebola, I'm just wondering out loud if that would be a factor.

andrewflnr 3y ago
As long as the virus is either very deadly XOR treated in a quarantined environment, not much changes for widespread infection. Part of the way deadly viruses limit their own spread is by informing our own active countermeasures.
lenerdenator 3y ago
IIRC there's been a few vaccines developed for Ebola that really put a dent in the lethality of the virus. Of course there's still economic and geopolitical reasons for not vaccinating everyone in the endemic areas, but it's a good start: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/ebola-vaccines https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/ebo... EDIT: NIH says that some of these vaccines have 97-100% effectiveness in certain aspects of slowing the spread of Zaire ebolavirus, meaning that it's not the effective death sentence it was in 2014, at least not for the vaccinated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659338/

andrewflnr 3y ago

As long as the virus is either very deadly XOR treated in a quarantined environment, not much changes for widespread infection. Part of the way deadly viruses limit their own spread is by informing our own active countermeasures.

lenerdenator 3y ago

IIRC there's been a few vaccines developed for Ebola that really put a dent in the lethality of the virus. Of course there's still economic and geopolitical reasons for not vaccinating everyone in the endemic areas, but it's a good start: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/ebola-vaccines https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/ebo... EDIT: NIH says that some of these vaccines have 97-100% effectiveness in certain aspects of slowing the spread of Zaire ebolavirus, meaning that it's not the effective death sentence it was in 2014, at least not for the vaccinated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659338/