5 ms·

As deadly as Ebola is for the individual patient, it's somewhat easily containable compared to other infections: It spreads via blood or other body fluids, it's

As deadly as Ebola is for the individual patient, it's somewhat easily containable compared to other infections: It spreads via blood or other body fluids, it's not airborne or transmitted via touch. From what I've read somewhat prolonged exposure is required - so pretty basic hospital equipment is sufficient as long as you can keep the patients isolated. Previous outbreaks were contained by isolating the patients and giving them the best care possible until either all perished or overcame the disease. It's a gruesome sickness but it doesn't have the potential to hop like SARS etc. do.

joe_the_user 13y ago
I would guess then that an outbreak of this sort is a testament to extremely squalid living conditions in the areas affected.
- batmansbelt 13y ago
  I read once that there is a ritual of bathing the dead that causes the spread of diseases like this in certain cultures.
  - mayneack 13y ago
    Descriptions from early outbreaks included rituals of evacuating all undigested food as part of the burial process.
    - laichzeit0 13y ago
      Sounds interesting, where did you read this?
      - mayneack 13y ago
        http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp/0140250913/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp...
- ds9 13y ago
  Part of the problem may be certain animal contacts, such as eating "bush meat" (mentioned in the article, also discussed in the Laurie Garrett book). Maybe a campaign against those practices could be worthwhile
  - grecy 13y ago
    > Maybe a campaign against those practices could be worthwhile It's very difficult to convince people to not eat food when the alternative is starving.
    - ZoF 13y ago
      Yep. Chance of sickness or certainty of starvation.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    There are campaigns against eating bush meat. And campaigns to get hunters to reduce their contact with uncooked fluids. Stuff like this: http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2006/Spring/africa/news/virus_hunting/?subsection_id=15 http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2006/Spring/africa/news/virus_hunt... This one is more focused on conservation: http://bushmeat.org/ http://bushmeat.org/ I expect there is lots more.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rectangletangle 13y ago
Ebola Reston has shown signs of being transmissible via air. Although it has only been confirmed to infect crab-eating macaques, the potential to jump to a human host is unsettlingly high. Seeing as from a "virus's perspective" a human and a macaque aren't very different. Our cytoplasmic membranes aren't that morphologically divergent, due to our common lineage. Currently it's unknown if it can affect humans, though there is a fair body of evidence suggesting that it can't. However, it could easily mutate to a human hosts; it's basically just a roll of the evolutionary dice.
- s_q_b 13y ago
  Ebola Reston actually infects homo sapiens, but it doesn't produce the deadly hemorrhagic fever symptoms. If Ebola Reston acquired the lethality of Ebola Zaire, it would be a highly dangerous disease. The prospect is worrisome, since in addition to crab-eating macaques (the animal in which the virus was first discovered), the virus had made the jump to pigs as well. Porcine to human transmission is also a very probable species jump. Since there is more human-pig contact that human-monkey contact, there's a dangerous prospect that a virulent air-spreading form of Ebola could jump the species barrier. If that occurred we'd be faced with a plague as deadly as Ebola Zaire with the airborne transmission mechanism of Ebola Reston.
  - efnx 13y ago
    But why (how) would a virus evolve deadly symptoms if it doesn't already cause deadly symptoms. I always thought that the rate at which Ebola Zaire kills its hosts is actually a hindrance to its further evolution. In general do virii tend to evolve deadlier or less deadly symptoms?
    - rectangletangle 13y ago
      It would entirely depend on the ecological niche it's exploiting. Ebola's preferred host (currently unknown, though bats are suspected) isn't human. Though its symptoms on humans are catastrophic, it may be asymptomatic to its primary host. It's effects on humans being only coincidental.
ds9 13y ago
Layperson here, but based on reading I'm a little more pessimistic. The incubation period can be up to 21 days, and the subject can be infectious during that time [1]. Thus there is a plausible worst-case scenario where an undiagnosed carrier flies to a population centre and comes in contact with a lot of people. Hopefully this could be prevented by contact tracing and other containment as described above, but if one carrier got out and infected people elsewhere, containment efforts might be unable to keep up. 1. http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola/ebola-incubation-period.html http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola/ebola-incubation-period.html
- XorNot 13y ago
  There's still a prolonged exposure issue. You might get unlucky, but as I understand it you need to take on a certain amount of virus initially for it successfully develop into an infection. While you might come into contact with a lot of people, it seems like even basic hygeine would be enough during incubation to protect most people.
timr 13y ago
Not really sure why people keep repeating this. If it were "easily containable compared to other infections", the doctors and nurses who treat the patients wouldn't have to wear full biohazard gear or use isolation wards. They'd simply pop on some gloves and a mask. This strain of Ebola isn't airborne, but it's plenty virulent -- it spreads through contact with nearly every bodily fluid. Get some on your hands and touch your face (which we all do, hundreds of times a day), and you're in trouble.
- personZ 13y ago
  The consequences are significantly higher even if the chance of infection is low. Of course, if given the option, medical staff will use much more significant measures. But that doesn't refute the parent.
- mayneack 13y ago
  Wearing bio-hazard gear is more a function of the mortality rate than anything else. Sure, it's easier to transmit than HIV (where the extremely long asymptomatic phase facilitates transmission), but it's not as easy as the flu. If the flu had an 80% mortality rate, you'd get bio-hazard suits for that too.
- Fomite 13y ago
  There are all manner of infections for which doctors and nurses treat patients with extensive protective gear, or in isolation wards. Beyond that, as others have mentioned, the really tricky bit is that once we don't have a good treatment for it, so post-exposure prophylaxis isn't really in the cards. I have, for example, never seen an estimate for the infectiousness of Ebola that puts it anywhere near measles.
- ibrad 13y ago
  In guinea we have trouble getting water and electricity. Hazmat suits? The infrastructure of the country alone is slowing down any form help to arrive.
jnbiche 13y ago
>It spreads via blood or other body fluids, it's not airborne or transmitted via touch. How do you think diseases spread through body fluids normally spread? By touch, from sick patients to their caregivers.

joe_the_user 13y ago

I would guess then that an outbreak of this sort is a testament to extremely squalid living conditions in the areas affected.

batmansbelt 13y ago
I read once that there is a ritual of bathing the dead that causes the spread of diseases like this in certain cultures.
- mayneack 13y ago
  Descriptions from early outbreaks included rituals of evacuating all undigested food as part of the burial process.
  - laichzeit0 13y ago
    Sounds interesting, where did you read this?
    - mayneack 13y ago
      http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp/0140250913/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp...
ds9 13y ago
Part of the problem may be certain animal contacts, such as eating "bush meat" (mentioned in the article, also discussed in the Laurie Garrett book). Maybe a campaign against those practices could be worthwhile
- grecy 13y ago
  > Maybe a campaign against those practices could be worthwhile It's very difficult to convince people to not eat food when the alternative is starving.
  - ZoF 13y ago
    Yep. Chance of sickness or certainty of starvation.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  There are campaigns against eating bush meat. And campaigns to get hunters to reduce their contact with uncooked fluids. Stuff like this: http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2006/Spring/africa/news/virus_hunting/?subsection_id=15 http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2006/Spring/africa/news/virus_hunt... This one is more focused on conservation: http://bushmeat.org/ http://bushmeat.org/ I expect there is lots more.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rectangletangle 13y ago

Ebola Reston has shown signs of being transmissible via air. Although it has only been confirmed to infect crab-eating macaques, the potential to jump to a human host is unsettlingly high. Seeing as from a "virus's perspective" a human and a macaque aren't very different. Our cytoplasmic membranes aren't that morphologically divergent, due to our common lineage. Currently it's unknown if it can affect humans, though there is a fair body of evidence suggesting that it can't. However, it could easily mutate to a human hosts; it's basically just a roll of the evolutionary dice.

s_q_b 13y ago
Ebola Reston actually infects homo sapiens, but it doesn't produce the deadly hemorrhagic fever symptoms. If Ebola Reston acquired the lethality of Ebola Zaire, it would be a highly dangerous disease. The prospect is worrisome, since in addition to crab-eating macaques (the animal in which the virus was first discovered), the virus had made the jump to pigs as well. Porcine to human transmission is also a very probable species jump. Since there is more human-pig contact that human-monkey contact, there's a dangerous prospect that a virulent air-spreading form of Ebola could jump the species barrier. If that occurred we'd be faced with a plague as deadly as Ebola Zaire with the airborne transmission mechanism of Ebola Reston.
- efnx 13y ago
  But why (how) would a virus evolve deadly symptoms if it doesn't already cause deadly symptoms. I always thought that the rate at which Ebola Zaire kills its hosts is actually a hindrance to its further evolution. In general do virii tend to evolve deadlier or less deadly symptoms?
  - rectangletangle 13y ago
    It would entirely depend on the ecological niche it's exploiting. Ebola's preferred host (currently unknown, though bats are suspected) isn't human. Though its symptoms on humans are catastrophic, it may be asymptomatic to its primary host. It's effects on humans being only coincidental.

ds9 13y ago

Layperson here, but based on reading I'm a little more pessimistic. The incubation period can be up to 21 days, and the subject can be infectious during that time [1]. Thus there is a plausible worst-case scenario where an undiagnosed carrier flies to a population centre and comes in contact with a lot of people. Hopefully this could be prevented by contact tracing and other containment as described above, but if one carrier got out and infected people elsewhere, containment efforts might be unable to keep up. 1. http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola/ebola-incubation-period.html http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola/ebola-incubation-period.html

XorNot 13y ago
There's still a prolonged exposure issue. You might get unlucky, but as I understand it you need to take on a certain amount of virus initially for it successfully develop into an infection. While you might come into contact with a lot of people, it seems like even basic hygeine would be enough during incubation to protect most people.

timr 13y ago

Not really sure why people keep repeating this. If it were "easily containable compared to other infections", the doctors and nurses who treat the patients wouldn't have to wear full biohazard gear or use isolation wards. They'd simply pop on some gloves and a mask. This strain of Ebola isn't airborne, but it's plenty virulent -- it spreads through contact with nearly every bodily fluid. Get some on your hands and touch your face (which we all do, hundreds of times a day), and you're in trouble.

personZ 13y ago
The consequences are significantly higher even if the chance of infection is low. Of course, if given the option, medical staff will use much more significant measures. But that doesn't refute the parent.
mayneack 13y ago
Wearing bio-hazard gear is more a function of the mortality rate than anything else. Sure, it's easier to transmit than HIV (where the extremely long asymptomatic phase facilitates transmission), but it's not as easy as the flu. If the flu had an 80% mortality rate, you'd get bio-hazard suits for that too.
Fomite 13y ago
There are all manner of infections for which doctors and nurses treat patients with extensive protective gear, or in isolation wards. Beyond that, as others have mentioned, the really tricky bit is that once we don't have a good treatment for it, so post-exposure prophylaxis isn't really in the cards. I have, for example, never seen an estimate for the infectiousness of Ebola that puts it anywhere near measles.
ibrad 13y ago
In guinea we have trouble getting water and electricity. Hazmat suits? The infrastructure of the country alone is slowing down any form help to arrive.

jnbiche 13y ago

>It spreads via blood or other body fluids, it's not airborne or transmitted via touch. How do you think diseases spread through body fluids normally spread? By touch, from sick patients to their caregivers.