4 ms·
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 wou
by 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 agoThe 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 agoWearing 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 agoThere 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 agoIn guinea we have trouble getting water and electricity. Hazmat suits? The infrastructure of the country alone is slowing down any form help to arrive.