Knowingly putting yourself in danger to be the first line of defense against a potentially epidemic outbreak, deserves special recognition. Everyone should know these doctors' names. We need to make international heroes of these people.
A close family friend is a very senior nurse at the Red Cross, and was deployed to help deal with the Ebola outbreak some months ago.
The emails I've had from her are horrifying. What's being reported in the media is the absolute tip of the iceberg - entire communities are being wiped out, the infection rate is growing in an epidemic fashion, and there are growing concerns that there's an airborne (droplet) transmission method, as there are numerous inexplicable infections. That said, it could also be the prevalence of bush meat which is helping to drive this.
There's talk of the Red Cross imminently pulling out, as it's no longer safe for their staff to be there.
I have a better idea: why don't we all start paying these people large sums of money rather than merely thanking them for sacrificing their lives while we don't have to?
We'd be less likely to send people into battle if we actually had to pay our soldiers what they're actually risking.
I'm sorry but I find this statement totally retarded.
Firstly as if anyone is going to be able to know all the doctors names even in this particular case and I'm sure there's plenty of other epidemics out there right now that are also dangerous.
Secondly there are more than doctors working on this case. Three other nurses also died as per the article.
Thirdly this story is hitting all the major news channels. It's currently top of HN. People are knowing this story.
Fourthly we don't live in a fantasy novel where knowing someone's name means something. Could we on HN at least talk about constructive things not emotive clap trap, we see this ever single day anyway from sites like upworthy.
edit - I have no association with MSF, they just seem to be the right people to be giving money to if you want to help with this. If anyone knows of others, please suggest them.
Also, and I appreciate this is pretty rude, but I know that there are some extremely rich people who hang out on here. To those people, see if you can try and arrive at a monetary value on how scared you are of ebola arriving in your backyard, and then donate that.
I spent 2 months in Sierra Leone last year and a month working with Wellbody Alliance [1] in the impoverished mining district of Kono. So far that part of Sierra Leone has been spared from the virus but with the limited health resources in that area, it is only a matter of time.
I can personally speak for their effectiveness and tell you that your donations will actually end up in the form of medicine or medical services to someone who really needs them and not in the hands of some giant NGO that ends up swallowing 75% of what you send them for admin costs and first class tickets.
One of the only doctors at the second largest (of eight) hospitals in neighboring capital Monrovia, Liberia suffered and died of Ebola too. These doctors certainly are heros. http://allafrica.com/stories/201407021024.html
This video by SkyNews shows the wood-and-plastic rural clinic conditions for Ebola health workers. Urban settings would often also lack any form of air conditioning to limit body fluids. Having lived for several years in similar towns there, it cuts close:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYMOGDI9XkI
https://medium.com/matter/how-to-ignore-a-plague-14ea08694cc
"Sweating profusely in the 90-degree heat....The next day, at the Holy Trinity Secondary School, I saw scores of high school kids playing soccer. Some had removed their white uniforms to avoid them getting dirty, and their bodies glistened. The longer they played, the more they sweated, and the more dangerous the game became for them. But they were either oblivious to the dangers of a virus that can kill nine in 10, often by internal bleeding and organ failure, or they did not care."
It's hard to even comprehend his sacrifices. What are the circumstances that causes one person to be selfless in the face of tragedy and others to try and profit from it? Wonder if he knows he inspires people the world over to try and become better.
There is more of a critical mass of recent Ebola survivors than ever before in history.
I know cultural fears can make it difficult to provide plasma transfusions, but this story is about a doctor who has Ebola. He almost certainly understands the science, and this could give him more of a fighting chance and a chance to show that medicine can help.
I wonder if contracting other diseases along the way had somehow contributed toward his resistance, as long as the immune system has recovered since. The plague stopped rather abruptly in the Middle Ages either due to sudden herd immunity of the survivors' immune systems or other unfavorable circumstances to its propagation.
I imagine there exist a portion of the population with a genetic mutation that is resistant to Ebola, considering it may have existed in the wild for a much longer period than its first description in the mid 70's.
>Ebola kills up to 90 percent of those infected and there is no cure or vaccine
Apparently this strand of the virus "only" kills 63% of the patients[1]. Even if it doesn't kill him, does anybody know what are the consequences of having suffered from ebola?
I don't mean to disrespect his work, and I'm asking this without having any clue: Why is this doctor so important? If there is no cure, what was his main role? Can't he be easily "replaced" by another brave person that is also willing to risk his life?
On another note, the article says that ebola has killed 600 people. Apparently this strand of ebola "only" killed 63% of the people that contract the disease. So far 964 people contracted the disease in a country of more than 6 million people. Aren't HIV or Hep C worst threats than ebola?
My understanding is Ebola is incurable but sometimes treatable, so while there is no medicine you can give that will stop it, you can care for the patient in ways that increase the chances of them surviving.
I'll try to answer your questions and clear some fear about Ebola that I read in this topic.
Ebola is unlikely to become a massive pandemic mostly because it isn't airborne. To contract it, you need to touch the victim's fluid (alive or dead)[1]. Some funeral practices in Africa involve the family cleaning the defunct body and washing their hands in the same bowl. As this is the first serious outbreak in West Africa, people have a hard time understanding they can't touch their loved ones bodies after they're gone. Besides, Ebola kills too fast to become a world-spread pandemic, probably even if it was airborne.
Surviving Ebola is possible - this epidemic so far kills between 60 and 70 % - but because of the numerous haemorrhages you endure you may suffer consequences, such as eye or liver damage. Apparently most people don't have sequelae but it's hard to find relevant sources for this.
100% of people die, This strand of Ebola kills 63% of people who contract it within weeks, as opposed to your examples of HIV and Hep C. It's also a particularly gruesome way to go. I suggest you look up what some of those symptoms listed actually are.
Doctors with experience trying to treat incurable viruses are also much less interchangeable than you seem to think. There's also a lot of work done to try and limit the spread of the virus as well as attempting to learn what we can to cure/prevent it in the future.
If you look at the outbreak list that you linked to, you can see that this is also the largest outbreak listed.
A lower initial mortality and a longer incubation time combined are the differences between a really bad virus for a small number of people and a potential global pandemic.
This is very serious.
So far Ebola was not capable of killing a large number of hosts because it killed swiftly and symptoms occurred very shortly after contracting it.
> Health workers take blood samples for Ebola virus testing at a screening tent in the local government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, June 30, 2014.
Ebola is generally transferred through bodily fluids so being careful and covering skin is good enough most of the time. Keep in mind that a lot of these outbreaks happen in poor rural Africa. Some of the earlier outbreaks were made worse by the clinics being so low budget and reusing needles.
The videos from the early days of Ebola and Marburg are quite remarkable. There is one that I recall of a group of young doctors wearing face masks and purple nitrile gloves, and being very delicate removing those nitrile gloves.
I don't know if that would pass JCAHO muster, much less protect one from Ebola. Cavalier is one way to put it, but I think the biggest issue is resource constraint.
I originally flagged this as spam; it did not seem immediately relevant. Now I see it DOES contain a task related to the Ebola outbreak... but I still don't understand what it is.
It's hard to comment on the specific likelihood, but a few general observations:
1. Ebola transmits via bodily fluids (blood, mucus). Plus, Ebola does not establish a chronic infection in a host. Pathogens with those characteristics usually don't spread that fast / wide.
2. Past observations support 1) - transmission in airplanes has never been observed AFAIK.
3. Infected people can transmit the virus while having a fever, and through later stages of disease. This means you can identify potentially contagious people quickly, which helps control efforts.
4. Having said that, there are lots of things we don't know about Ebola, and it's always best to plan for the worst.
The diseases that keep me up at night are those that spread via airborne or vector transmission & have lots of asymptomatic carriers. Ebola has neither of those. Nevertheless, as far as Ebola outbreaks go, this one is the worst yet and correspondingly worrying.
The primary positive is that the disease has a very quick run from infection to visibly symptomatic to death. While long distance spread is still possible, most outbreaks have been somewhat geographically contained because of this. The worst case scenario for deadly diseases is asymptomatic carriers, and I don't know if there is such a thing with ebola (except for the first few days of infection). It's why diseases like HIV have ultimately had greater impact. It can spread for years before anyone becomes symptomatic.
I REALLY hope he survives. And not only because he is a hero and I hope not a single person has to die from that horrible disease anymore. The other reason is that one of the reasons for the long lasting epidemia is distrust for foreign doctors and as a native, he has a much better chance of reaching and educating people.
The Ebola virus's spread is completely unnatural (it jumps entire regions where there are no major travel patterns). And people are supposed to believe a disease spread that naturally impossible.
You would think there would be an investigation. The last case of a disease sprouting at random with no previous occurrence was Cholera in Haiti, a disease that was introduced by Nepalese UN Aid workers.
> And educated people are supposed to believe a disease spread that naturally impossible.
Are you a virologist? Can you take a minute and think about something you say before you jump into conspiracy theories? This is a tragedy, not an opportunity to spin your silly ideas.
Educated people question your unsourced and unfounded assertion: "The Ebola virus's spread is completely unnatural (it jumps entire regions where there are no major travel patterns)."
Perhaps your brand of "educated people" should stop begging questions to arrive at their points.
He does have a point. From Central Africa to the west end of West Africa is over a 1000 miles, yet Ebola did not show up in the area in between.
That supposes that a carrier from an infected area is able to travel for months or weeks, whether by road or through the jungle without passing on the virus along the way.
But do all carriers necessarily leave the place where they get infected, and do all the people or animals in infected areas develop an immunity that stops the disease from flaring up again in the same areas?
Conspiracy insinuations or not how the disease arose there is a very important issue which needs to be seriously addressed. It could just as easily have travelled to a major urban area.
[+] [-] feverishaaron|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bellerocky|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madaxe_again|11 years ago|reply
The emails I've had from her are horrifying. What's being reported in the media is the absolute tip of the iceberg - entire communities are being wiped out, the infection rate is growing in an epidemic fashion, and there are growing concerns that there's an airborne (droplet) transmission method, as there are numerous inexplicable infections. That said, it could also be the prevalence of bush meat which is helping to drive this.
There's talk of the Red Cross imminently pulling out, as it's no longer safe for their staff to be there.
Can you say "sacrifice zone"?
[+] [-] vilhelm_s|11 years ago|reply
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fighting_SARS_Memori...
[+] [-] blazespin|11 years ago|reply
We'd be less likely to send people into battle if we actually had to pay our soldiers what they're actually risking.
[+] [-] 4channer|11 years ago|reply
Ugh, what a shame, fingers crossed he's the 10% that survives the disease.
[+] [-] aaron695|11 years ago|reply
Firstly as if anyone is going to be able to know all the doctors names even in this particular case and I'm sure there's plenty of other epidemics out there right now that are also dangerous.
Secondly there are more than doctors working on this case. Three other nurses also died as per the article.
Thirdly this story is hitting all the major news channels. It's currently top of HN. People are knowing this story.
Fourthly we don't live in a fantasy novel where knowing someone's name means something. Could we on HN at least talk about constructive things not emotive clap trap, we see this ever single day anyway from sites like upworthy.
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
And for whoever is reading, you can find donate buttons for MSF's ebola emergency appeal and MSF in general, if you follow the links below.
http://www.msf.org.uk/ebola
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/race-control-eb...
edit - I have no association with MSF, they just seem to be the right people to be giving money to if you want to help with this. If anyone knows of others, please suggest them.
Also, and I appreciate this is pretty rude, but I know that there are some extremely rich people who hang out on here. To those people, see if you can try and arrive at a monetary value on how scared you are of ebola arriving in your backyard, and then donate that.
[+] [-] jhull|11 years ago|reply
I can personally speak for their effectiveness and tell you that your donations will actually end up in the form of medicine or medical services to someone who really needs them and not in the hands of some giant NGO that ends up swallowing 75% of what you send them for admin costs and first class tickets.
[1] http://wellbodyalliance.org/donate/
[+] [-] kevinconroy|11 years ago|reply
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-stop-the-ebola-epi...
[+] [-] thadk|11 years ago|reply
This video by SkyNews shows the wood-and-plastic rural clinic conditions for Ebola health workers. Urban settings would often also lack any form of air conditioning to limit body fluids. Having lived for several years in similar towns there, it cuts close: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYMOGDI9XkI
https://medium.com/matter/how-to-ignore-a-plague-14ea08694cc "Sweating profusely in the 90-degree heat....The next day, at the Holy Trinity Secondary School, I saw scores of high school kids playing soccer. Some had removed their white uniforms to avoid them getting dirty, and their bodies glistened. The longer they played, the more they sweated, and the more dangerous the game became for them. But they were either oblivious to the dangers of a virus that can kill nine in 10, often by internal bleeding and organ failure, or they did not care."
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylz|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lukwiya#Death
[+] [-] _craft|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codexjourneys|11 years ago|reply
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/179/Supplement_1/S18.f...
There is more of a critical mass of recent Ebola survivors than ever before in history.
I know cultural fears can make it difficult to provide plasma transfusions, but this story is about a doctor who has Ebola. He almost certainly understands the science, and this could give him more of a fighting chance and a chance to show that medicine can help.
[+] [-] dobbsbob|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ejr|11 years ago|reply
I imagine there exist a portion of the population with a genetic mutation that is resistant to Ebola, considering it may have existed in the wild for a much longer period than its first description in the mid 70's.
[+] [-] josu|11 years ago|reply
Apparently this strand of the virus "only" kills 63% of the patients[1]. Even if it doesn't kill him, does anybody know what are the consequences of having suffered from ebola?
I don't mean to disrespect his work, and I'm asking this without having any clue: Why is this doctor so important? If there is no cure, what was his main role? Can't he be easily "replaced" by another brave person that is also willing to risk his life?
On another note, the article says that ebola has killed 600 people. Apparently this strand of ebola "only" killed 63% of the people that contract the disease. So far 964 people contracted the disease in a country of more than 6 million people. Aren't HIV or Hep C worst threats than ebola?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
edit - and if you want to know why this is being taken so seriously as a threat, have a look at this graph - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_outbreak... - it is chilling.
[+] [-] zilian|11 years ago|reply
Ebola is unlikely to become a massive pandemic mostly because it isn't airborne. To contract it, you need to touch the victim's fluid (alive or dead)[1]. Some funeral practices in Africa involve the family cleaning the defunct body and washing their hands in the same bowl. As this is the first serious outbreak in West Africa, people have a hard time understanding they can't touch their loved ones bodies after they're gone. Besides, Ebola kills too fast to become a world-spread pandemic, probably even if it was airborne.
Surviving Ebola is possible - this epidemic so far kills between 60 and 70 % - but because of the numerous haemorrhages you endure you may suffer consequences, such as eye or liver damage. Apparently most people don't have sequelae but it's hard to find relevant sources for this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#Transmissi...
See also http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/
[+] [-] Noted|11 years ago|reply
Doctors with experience trying to treat incurable viruses are also much less interchangeable than you seem to think. There's also a lot of work done to try and limit the spread of the virus as well as attempting to learn what we can to cure/prevent it in the future.
If you look at the outbreak list that you linked to, you can see that this is also the largest outbreak listed.
[+] [-] iak8god|11 years ago|reply
They've certainly killed more people, but the terrifying thing about ebola is how very contagious it is.
[+] [-] jthol|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenjackson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
This is very serious.
So far Ebola was not capable of killing a large number of hosts because it killed swiftly and symptoms occurred very shortly after contracting it.
[+] [-] austengary|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corwinbad|11 years ago|reply
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NC_002549.1
[+] [-] rsync|11 years ago|reply
The picture shows someone in the most primitive surgical gown, covered in blood, with exposed skin.
Is that just a stock photo ? It seems awfully cavalier...
[+] [-] abraham|11 years ago|reply
> Health workers take blood samples for Ebola virus testing at a screening tent in the local government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, June 30, 2014.
Ebola is generally transferred through bodily fluids so being careful and covering skin is good enough most of the time. Keep in mind that a lot of these outbreaks happen in poor rural Africa. Some of the earlier outbreaks were made worse by the clinics being so low budget and reusing needles.
[+] [-] carbocation|11 years ago|reply
I don't know if that would pass JCAHO muster, much less protect one from Ebola. Cavalier is one way to put it, but I think the biggest issue is resource constraint.
[+] [-] snowwrestler|11 years ago|reply
Doctors working on the front lines of an outbreak in rural Africa don't necessarily have that option.
[+] [-] ibrad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vik1ng|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xsmasher|11 years ago|reply
Can you explain what this is, and how it helps?
[+] [-] beachstartup|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcelsalathe|11 years ago|reply
1. Ebola transmits via bodily fluids (blood, mucus). Plus, Ebola does not establish a chronic infection in a host. Pathogens with those characteristics usually don't spread that fast / wide.
2. Past observations support 1) - transmission in airplanes has never been observed AFAIK.
3. Infected people can transmit the virus while having a fever, and through later stages of disease. This means you can identify potentially contagious people quickly, which helps control efforts.
4. Having said that, there are lots of things we don't know about Ebola, and it's always best to plan for the worst.
The diseases that keep me up at night are those that spread via airborne or vector transmission & have lots of asymptomatic carriers. Ebola has neither of those. Nevertheless, as far as Ebola outbreaks go, this one is the worst yet and correspondingly worrying.
[+] [-] richardwigley|11 years ago|reply
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/06/25/324941229/could-t...
[+] [-] abruzzi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomwalker|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elwell|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_faustus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theycallmemorty|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macrael|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Polish_Dan|11 years ago|reply
You would think there would be an investigation. The last case of a disease sprouting at random with no previous occurrence was Cholera in Haiti, a disease that was introduced by Nepalese UN Aid workers.
[+] [-] bellerocky|11 years ago|reply
Are you a virologist? Can you take a minute and think about something you say before you jump into conspiracy theories? This is a tragedy, not an opportunity to spin your silly ideas.
[+] [-] whyenot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criley2|11 years ago|reply
Perhaps your brand of "educated people" should stop begging questions to arrive at their points.
[+] [-] vfclists|11 years ago|reply
That supposes that a carrier from an infected area is able to travel for months or weeks, whether by road or through the jungle without passing on the virus along the way.
But do all carriers necessarily leave the place where they get infected, and do all the people or animals in infected areas develop an immunity that stops the disease from flaring up again in the same areas?
Conspiracy insinuations or not how the disease arose there is a very important issue which needs to be seriously addressed. It could just as easily have travelled to a major urban area.
[+] [-] prawn|11 years ago|reply