I can't find the historical urgent advisory thread to update there, but we will need everyone to start panic at full speed again, post haste!

It's back, back, BACK!!!

Avoid the rush - panic NOW!!!

Oh, wait, it's just in the Congo. Guess I'll have to see if that was on my travel roster in bucket list......

you know the Bola is pretty quick at killin it's victims....but how does it keep coming back?

is there a magic fountain of bola death that some unsuspecting native wanders into and then brings it back to the hut for his family and neighbors???

I would panic, but I have more important stuff to worry about. Like trimming my toe nails

I wouldn't think this would be a slow news time. Far from it, actually, But, when they start beating the drum on this shit again, they must be bored.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
you know the Bola is pretty quick at killin it's victims....but how does it keep coming back?

is there a magic fountain of bola death that some unsuspecting native wanders into and then brings it back to the hut for his family and neighbors???

It’s caused by climate change you fool!

I remember the hysterics from the last Bola thread. The key to surviving it is getting basic western medical care, if memory serves. Something you don’t get a lot of in the Congo, which is exacerbated by people handling the dead in funerary proceedings.

It could be a raging epidemic in Africa and we’d have nothing to fear here.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

Oh, wait, it's just in the Congo. Guess I'll have to see if that was on my travel roster in bucket list......

Well...no. It's not.

I just came back from the Congo. Presently the ebola is in the east, and while previous efforts were successful to isolate villages and treat with new experimental vaccines, conflict in the east makes isolation impossible, and lends to spread of the disease.

With previous outbreaks we made quite a few trips to ebola areas.

It's not a joke.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
I remember the hysterics from the last Bola thread. The key to surviving it is getting basic western medical care, if memory serves. Something you don’t get a lot of in the Congo, which is exacerbated by people handling the dead in funerary proceedings.

It could be a raging epidemic in Africa and we’d have nothing to fear here.

That does not match up with what I have read. It's viral and I don't think there are any effective antiviral treatments for it, they pretty much just try to keep you alive until you get over it, and that improves your chances but not by a whole lot.

You might be thinking of bacterial diseases like bubonic plague or leprosy which are easily treated with antibiotics.

It IS true that the Ebola virus is not super transmissible (direct bodily fluid contact), so cultural differences mean it would be a lot less likely to turn into a huge epidemic here.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
you know the Bola is pretty quick at killin it's victims....but how does it keep coming back?

For anyone who actually wants to know:

There is strong evidence that the original source and continuing reservoir of Ebola is in wild primates that people will continue to be exposed to when hunting “bush meat.”

It’s also been established that the Ebola virus can remain alive in its victims who have (more or less) recovered from the disease. The carriers don’t suffer the primary disease symptoms, but it’s believed that they can infect others like Typhoid Mary did long ago.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
you know the Bola is pretty quick at killin it's victims....but how does it keep coming back?

For anyone who actually wants to know:

There is strong evidence that the original source and continuing reservoir of Ebola is in wild primates that people will continue to be exposed to when hunting “bush meat.”

It’s also been established that the Ebola virus can remain alive in its victims who have (more or less) recovered from the disease. The carriers don’t suffer the primary disease symptoms, but it’s believed that they can infect others like Typhoid Mary did long ago.

Thanks, didn’t know that. I guess people gotta eat, so there is gonna b the bola forever

And although as stated Ebola doesn’t currently spread easily among people who don’t butcher wild game or handle and prepare their own dead relatives for burial, the continuing concern about the disease in the West is that it could mutate into a form that could infect in the same way as influenza. If (when) that happens and it’s possible to catch it from the passenger sitting next to you on the airplane, it would become a far greater hazard.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
It's not a joke.

Are you certain?

Have you ever read "The Hot Zone?" Kind of dated now, but he tells the story about an ebola outbreak back in the early '90s. There are a number of different strains and they are all identified by their locale of origin. Marburg, for Marburg, Germany, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Kinshasha, and Ebola Reston, for Reston, Virgina. There are probably others now.

The first three were all human variants, but the Reston was a primate only version, thank God. There was a primate housing facility in Reston that suffered an outbreak. The Reston strain was as deadly as the others, but spread by respiration. It was airborne. It spread throughout the entire facility and killed all of the primates, since they could not isolate the ventilation systems for the various rooms. There were no human casualties. The bottom line was not if but when the human strain would mutate to one that could be spread by respiration.

Than we would see some pretty scat.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

Are you certain?

Quite.

It's one of the things we do; frequent trips to ebola breakouts when they occur.

I thought it started last year by people eating bats? Yes a quick search shows bats are a carrier.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
is there a magic fountain of bola death that some unsuspecting native wanders into and then brings it back to the hut for his family and neighbors???

The best guess is that the reservoir for da 'bola is bats, and that one vector that puts it in the human population is apes. 'Bola lives in bats without killing them, and sometimes gets into apes, which some Africans butcher and eat, getting the 'bola. But no one knows for certain.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I wouldn't think this would be a slow news time. Far from it, actually, But, when they start beating the drum on this shit again, they must be bored.

I think it is what they choose to report. We are loaded with good news right now, especially economic good news. You know CNN, NBC, et al would cut their own throats before they would spend much time on the economy.



.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
I remember the hysterics from the last Bola thread. The key to surviving it is getting basic western medical care, if memory serves. Something you don’t get a lot of in the Congo, which is exacerbated by people handling the dead in funerary proceedings.

It could be a raging epidemic in Africa and we’d have nothing to fear here.

That does not match up with what I have read. It's viral and I don't think there are any effective antiviral treatments for it, they pretty much just try to keep you alive until you get over it, and that improves your chances but not by a whole lot.

You might be thinking of bacterial diseases like bubonic plague or leprosy which are easily treated with antibiotics.

It IS true that the Ebola virus is not super transmissible (direct bodily fluid contact), so cultural differences mean it would be a lot less likely to turn into a huge epidemic here.

Exactly my point about modern western care. If it is caught early enough, death rates are lower than the common flu, which is a far more deadly disease regardless of the care given. The 2012-2013 flu season caused an estimated 56,000 deaths in the US alone.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
I remember the hysterics from the last Bola thread. The key to surviving it is getting basic western medical care, if memory serves. Something you don’t get a lot of in the Congo, which is exacerbated by people handling the dead in funerary proceedings.

It could be a raging epidemic in Africa and we’d have nothing to fear here.

That does not match up with what I have read. It's viral and I don't think there are any effective antiviral treatments for it, they pretty much just try to keep you alive until you get over it, and that improves your chances but not by a whole lot.

You might be thinking of bacterial diseases like bubonic plague or leprosy which are easily treated with antibiotics.

It IS true that the Ebola virus is not super transmissible (direct bodily fluid contact), so cultural differences mean it would be a lot less likely to turn into a huge epidemic here.

Exactly my point about modern western care. If it is caught early enough, death rates are lower than the common flu, which is a far more deadly disease regardless of the care given. The 2012-2013 flu season caused an estimated 56,000 deaths in the US alone.

Are you saying ebola kills fewer than the flu worldwide in any given period of time? That is certainly true.

But for any given infected person, ebola is much, much more deadly than the flu. Some strains of ebola kill 80% of those infected. Some much less, but all more than the flu viruses kill.

Luckliy, ebola isn't extremely contagious. You have to be exposed to body fluids to get it. (Ebola Reston notwithstanding.) The flu is far more contagious as it is airborne. Another reason ebola won't be a world killer is that it kills people pretty quickly - its victims die so fast they don't get much chance to infect others. We'll see how it evolves though.

The virus that still really scares science is smallpox. It is very contagious, and still can kill up to 30% of its victims. Since it has been virtually wiped out in nature, people aren't vaccinated any more, and some populations may not have much genetic resistance. (Eurasian people battled smallpox for so many centuries, that they probably have some genetic resistance. Other populations - Native Americans, for example, did not and may still not.) If smallpox arises again, it could be horrible. And, it is believed that both American and Soviet scientists experimented with genetically modified smallpox that is even more transmissible and deadly. Fun stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
I remember the hysterics from the last Bola thread. The key to surviving it is getting basic western medical care, if memory serves. Something you don’t get a lot of in the Congo, which is exacerbated by people handling the dead in funerary proceedings.

It could be a raging epidemic in Africa and we’d have nothing to fear here.

That does not match up with what I have read. It's viral and I don't think there are any effective antiviral treatments for it, they pretty much just try to keep you alive until you get over it, and that improves your chances but not by a whole lot.

You might be thinking of bacterial diseases like bubonic plague or leprosy which are easily treated with antibiotics.

It IS true that the Ebola virus is not super transmissible (direct bodily fluid contact), so cultural differences mean it would be a lot less likely to turn into a huge epidemic here.

Exactly my point about modern western care. If it is caught early enough, death rates are lower than the common flu, which is a far more deadly disease regardless of the care given. The 2012-2013 flu season caused an estimated 56,000 deaths in the US alone.

Do you have a source for Ebola mortality rates with modern medical care? What you are saying does not agree with what I have found.