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Could be worse. The pandemic will start if Ebola spreads to a low-resource country with a large urban population. Worst case, in my opinion, would be an Ebola c
by davycro 12y ago
Could be worse. The pandemic will start if Ebola spreads to a low-resource country with a large urban population. Worst case, in my opinion, would be an Ebola case diagnosed in Johannesburg.
- sanxiyn 12y agoEbola already spread to Nigeria, but it seems to be contained now. Nigeria has more urban population but less resource than South Africa, so I don't think South Africa is the worst case.
- buyx 12y agoIt would be cause for concern if it started spreading in the South African public healthcare system, where infection control (or doing their work) is not a high priority for many staff (http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S0256-95742010000700009&script=sci_arttext http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S0256-95742010000700...). On the other hand, private hospitals have the same, or similarly trained nurses, who do a great job. So hopefully the nurses' self-preservation instincts will kick in, and similar levels of isolation to those found in advanced healthcare systems will be deployed quickly if it starts spreading in the public healthcare system.
- nl 12y agoJohannesburg has a population of ~10 million (including connected urban areas) and is quite a long way from the affected areas. OTOH, Lagos has a population of around 20 million and is within hundreds of kilometers of active cases. It's almost 10 times more densely populated than Johannesburg too (20,008/km2 vs 2,900/km2).
- EtienneK 12y agoThere were cases of Ebola here in Johannesburg in 1996 [1]. Seems like we did a good job of containing it then, since no other cases have been reported since. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#mediaviewer/File:EbolaSubmit2.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#mediaviewer...