Tracing Ebola’s Breakout to an African 2-Year-Old

[Zaheer]

The last piece of the article is painful to read. Anyone know how we can contribute to supplies, etc to fight Ebola?

"A Desperate Call for Help

By June and July, Sierra Leone was becoming the center of the outbreak. At the government hospital in Kenema, Dr. Sheik Umar Khan was leading the efforts to treat patients and control the epidemic.

But he was desperate for supplies: chlorine for disinfection, gloves, goggles, protective suits, rudimentary sugar and salt solutions to fight dehydration and give patients a chance to survive. Early in July, he emailed friends and former medical school classmates in the United States, asking for their help and sending a spreadsheet listing what he needed, and what he had. Many of the lines in the “available” column were empty. One of his requests was for body bags: 3,000 adult, 2,000 child.

Before his friends could send the supplies, Dr. Khan contracted Ebola himself. He died on July 29."

[cmrivers]

Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) is an excellent choice. They have been integral to controlling several past Ebola outbreaks, and have been fighting this one since the beginning. They are almost entirely tapped out right now. http://www.msf.org

I can't vouch for them, but the Liberian Ministry of Health also has donation instructions: http://www.mohsw.gov.lr

[jhonovich]

"Unlike most previous outbreaks, which occurred in remote, localized spots, this one began in a border region where roads have been improved and people travel a lot. In this case, the disease was on the move before health officials even knew it had struck."

What if someone in a major US city got infected? How bad could it get? Could they even contain it at that point?

[maxerickson]

It's likely easier to control in the U.S. where there are a lot of resources and people are less likely to engage in a lot of physical contact with the infected, and where trust of doctors is a lot higher.

There is also a much more extensive public health system that is alert to the risk of an infected person entering the country.

[SoftwareMaven]

The US has far better medical facilities, better supplies, better communication tools, better handling procedures for corpses and a society that doesn't stigmatize infectious diseases. Taken together, an outbreak here would look very different than an outbreak in Africa, even if a sick patient was dropped into Times Square.

[jseliger]

How bad could it get

Not very, barring unexpected mutation: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/30/5948995/why-ebola-would-never-g...

[alukima]

Does the usage of African instead of Guinean bother anyone else? Africa is widely not recognized as a continent of distinct countries and this isn't helping. It's like referring to people from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as North Americans.

[zachrose]

Yeah, the mistake of referring to Africa as a single nation is unfortunately common in the U.S., made by everyone from from leading Republican politicians to, more sadly, Clayton Kershaw.

[1] http://www.africaisacontinent.com/common-mistake

[2] http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101220&content_id=...

[IvyMike]

There are countries named Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Guyana and French Guiana.

I think I'm pretty well traveled but even I have difficulty sorting these all out. So even though "Guinean" would be accurate, it would still cause some confusion.

[FollowSteph3]

Most people compare it to the flu but what about norovirus. It's spread in a versus similar way and pretty much everyone in the US has had it at one time or another...

[pinar747]

How did the 2-year-old contract the virus in the first place?

[Pxtl]

The article makes it clear that this is the big question. Suspects are fruit bat poop and bush meat.

[wilsonfiifi]

Contaminated vaccine?

[basicplus2]

Nobody can be serious about containing this outbreak unless they stop the planes flying and close all borders.

[NkVczPkybiXICG]

...or just move to Madagascar.