Ebola will NOT go airborne
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Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Description: (General discussion regarding the next pandemic)
URL: http://www.avianflutalk.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=32102
Printed Date: April 16 2024 at 4:30pm
Topic: Ebola will NOT go airborne
Posted By: Kilt2
Subject: Ebola will NOT go airborne
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 7:59pm
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well its highly unlikely and we should not worry about that. Its just not that sort of bug. Its possible - but it has to make a lot of changes. So don't worry. Or - worry about the flu. https://richarddawkins.net/2014/09/fact-or-fiction-the-ebola-virus-will-go-airborne/ ------------- And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. |
Replies:
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 11:13pm
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No virus has ever changed it's mode of transmission that dramatically - from bloodborne to respiratory. It's incredibly unlikely, and as Kilt mentioned, would require a huge number of genetic changes. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 10:05am
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********** IMPORTANT UPDATE ********** CIDRAP – Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy suggest respirators for all Ebola healthcare workers – aerosol transmissibility of virus in question |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 10:12am
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I think it doesn't need to go through any fundamental changes because it is already transmissible in varying degrees via all the modes, airborne of sorts being the lesser but still viably there under limited circumstances. It is a true super bug. ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 10:17am
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And as we all saw on Discovery, the worm shaped viron actually squirmed around just like a worn. That feature alone indicates something monumental to me. It has the ability to burrow. ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 12:52pm
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US ARMY Says EBOLA = FLU in Airborne Stability, Needs Winter Weather To Go Airborne http://pissinontheroses.blogspot.com/2014/09/us-army-says-ebola-flu-in-airborne.html - http://pissinontheroses.blogspot.com/2014/09/us-army-says-ebola-flu-in-airborne.html |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 1:46pm
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Flu makes you sneeze. Ebola doesn't (in pigs it does - which goes a long way toward explaining how Reston spread to monkeys caged a whopping 8 inches away). Respiratory transmission doesn't amount to much if a virus can't get out of it's victim's airway. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 2:06pm
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when they work with ebola in the lab its always in a level 4 now they are telling docs and nurses that a gown,gloves and a N95 mask is all you need ? really ? REALLY??? in a front line situation you are exposed to a whole lot more virus than you are in a lab people are actively bleeding from every orifice virus is EVERYWHERE something is terribly terribly wrong with what we are being told let the CDC types just wear a gown gloves and a mask in the lab betcha they wouldn't even think of it CDC’s “Lesser Of Evils” Double Standard On Health Care Worker Protection Indicates They Expect a Large Ebola Outbreak In USA CIDRAP is being a whole lot more responsible than the CDC is on this |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 2:26pm
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I don't know how much of that is from Fort Detrick and how much is opinion. It is 15 years old though and would be chillingly prophetic if we found a coinfectee in cooler hemisphere sneezing out cozy and viable Ebola/flu all over. In that sence it sounds logical to me that that could hold water. My big question is why the hell isn't someone doing extensive testing on monkeys in our hemisphere with Ebola alone and with coinfection Ebola/flu in a setting simulating nature as closely as possible so we know what we're really up against. Is that really a quarter mile wide meteor heading directly for earth or just a bug on the lens? If you're right and any form of flu like transmissibility is a no-go then you'll never hear the end of kudos from me but if you're wrong then you're riding in the back with the dogs however darlings they may be. Lol ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 6:31pm
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I'm the dog whisperer - I'll be fine. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Elver
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 7:25pm
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"EBOV infection in swine affects mainly respiratory tract, implicating a potential for airborne transmission of ZEBOV2, 6. Contact exposure is considered to be the most important route of infection with EBOV in primates7, although there are reports suggesting or suspecting aerosol transmission of EBOV from NHP to NHP" NHP = non human primate http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121115/srep00811/full/srep00811.html - http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121115/srep00811/full/srep00811.html |
Posted By: CRS, DrPH
Date Posted: September 19 2014 at 9:11pm
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Some colleagues of mine wrote this article, it is very compelling because they argue that airborne be damned, when the bug is aerosolized, it still can get into you easily! http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola - http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola "The current paradigm also assumes that only "small" particles (less than
5 micrometers [mcm]) can be inhaled and deposited in the respiratory
tract. This is not true. Particles as large as 100 mcm (and perhaps even
larger) can be inhaled into the mouth and nose. Larger particles are
deposited in the nasal passages, pharynx, and upper regions of the
lungs, while smaller particles are more likely to deposit in the lower,
alveolar regions. And for many pathogens, infection is possible
regardless of the particle size or deposition site."
------------- CRS, DrPH |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 1:25am
I have never fallen for the "airborne" hype. Like Jacksdad (who has only ever spoken sense so far), I could see the errors in the Reston experiments. But add what Chuck (whose science I do respect) just said to the amazing stickiness and wormlike tunneling of the ebola virion. Now take that pathogen-directly-from-hell and give it to pigs, hay fever sufferers or co infect a host with flu or a low grade sinus infection. Hey presto! A non airborne, airborne virus. I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT AND NOW I BELIEVE! No, not in angels and stuff, but in a microscopic demon who needs no wings. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
CRS, DrPH wrote:Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 5:31am
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Top Expert: Ebola Turning Airborne is “Not Far-Fetched” http://www.thedailysheeple.com/top-expert-ebola-turning-airborne-is-not-far-fetched_092014 - http://www.thedailysheeple.com/top-expert-ebola-turning-airborne-is-not-far-fetched_092014 "Since we are facing a “hyper-evolution” of the virus he sees as unprecedented, it has already obtained “trillions of throws of the genetic dice,” Osterholm emphasizes. |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 9:45am
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In the ebola forum I posted a detail from reports that viral load needed to be high to catch Ebola via a sneeze. I stated that it was according to experts (thus not myself). It was truthful (in that I was citing), but it wasn't the whole truth. There was a lot that should have been said in that post, that I kept to myself because it was still being debated (transmission means, 1-10 viral load, etc.). But in that particular post my personal opinions would not have been helpful. In the meantime, much has changed in recent days. Reputable experts have published their arguments. Among many coming forward: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola I had a short discussion with Lisa Brosseau about transmission a few weeks ago, and I was pleased to see she had published this. The CDC is slowly updating their SitRep pdfs to include an evolving understanding of Ebola's transmission means. However, I find it deeply disturbing that some scientists are still touting the danger of an '"unlikely mutation" causing Ebola to "become airborne" and rampaging around the globe. Ebola is already 'limited airborne', and as more people realize this there is going to be mass hysteria - because they've been told it would result in said rampage. It (doesn't need to mutate) will result in nothing different from what we have right now. Sadly, what we have now is something much worse than it had to be. In their efforts to quell public fear and downplay the crisis early on, the various administrations (with their publicly shaming 'gags') forced the position that Ebola was less dangerous than it is - lulling governments into false security. The resulting inactions, and lack of needed precautions, have given rise to needless HCW deaths - and the mother of all diseases having free reign over a population of millions. I've never been the prepping type.... but I am about to become one. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:12am
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They could swab the outer filters inside the masks of health care providers, see if live virons are even getting into that location in the first place. In the videos " saviing Dr Brantley they cleatly say that both patients viral load at time of admission was 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Uk case was lower. So they had in controlled conditions 2 viral filled patients, the data they will have gathered from the environment surrounding these patients will be invaluable in studying risk of exposure and transmission....and they will/should have gathered data. Particle counts in the room, settle plates, every body fluid would have been checked, as would samples from any sneezes, and swabs from used protection suits, just to identify any particular danger zones. So it may be able to reach the resp tract however I agree with others that this does not mean it is true airborne. As I previously posted to become a true airborne pathogen would the virus not have to change tissue tropism and be able to infect the upper airways, i.e. the respiratory epithelium. I thought it was confined to entering immune cells such was monocytes and macrophages, and endothelium cells. It is well known monocytes and dendritic cells in the airways are very unique from other locations. They are at different differential stages and express many different surface molecules than those present in other mucosal and systemic surfaces. Just my thoughts HP foxp3 |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:14am
One of the most important posts since the beginning of this debate. This article is an absolute must read by all AFT and EI members! These guys are not "shade-tree mechanics". If you go back and read through many of my posts, much of what I have discussed I'm my own amature words is substantiated in this one article. You can now no longer be a credible debatuer of this subject without having first read this article. Thank you Chuck for sharing this.  ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:28am
Welcome over here as they say, to the dark side, Germ Nerdier (  ). I understand your feelings on the threat and your family situation up there. Over here you will find a wealth of preparedness information and many many more friendly and helpful people though you seem to be quite apt in figuring out much on your own. Welcome.------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:30am
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Same article :) I agree it is a must-read.
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Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:31am
| The dark side LOL! |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:37am
It can infect epithelial cells.
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Posted By: CRS, DrPH
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:55am
Thanks, Boss! I was very glad to find that, our EOHS department is excellent! Please note that the technological solution they recommend (high-level PPE) would not be practical in Africa, due to the high heat/humidity, lack of access to decontamination facilities etc. We would use this type of gear in the USA if Ebola ever landed here, but I don't see much hope for fighting Ebola in Africa using advanced PPE. That is a very grim prognosis, this thing might have to just burn along like the bubonic plaque did in Europe, which burned out when mortalities were so high that only genetically resistant survivors remained. Considering that aid workers are being murdered by a frightened and distrustful populace, our options for controlling this in Africa are dwindling. We may be approaching containment more than any other response. ------------- CRS, DrPH |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:00am
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CRS, The solution might be impractical, but HCWs in W Africa should be advised of the risks regardless.
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Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:03am
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Excuse my ignorance but if it is airborne why are we not seeing epidemiological patterns suggestive of this? Particle size is interesting, centrifugal effect of nasal passage etc, but not the only factor. Respiratory tract is exposed to millions of infectious agents, and foreign proteins everyday so it surpasses other parts of the immune system in defence tactics. It has evolved countless protective responses. It's armour and battle tactics would impress many a military strategies. Its chemical warfare alone would make the most un PC horror movie. It is the most heavily guarded entry to the body. Very few viruses can use it and those that do tend to produce severe irritation,resulting in streaming noses thick with battleground material ,( pus dead white blood cells etc). They universally cause sneezing and coughing, none of these are documented as a predominantly Ebola. That said I ain't taking the risk, I am stocking. Hzp foxp |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:42am
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Been nerdier. Can it cold infect epithelial cells...by this I mean use them as an initial point of entry which would be needed if respiratory transmission. The consensus from pubmed and articles I have read is summed below. Quote https://web.stanford.edu/group/virus/filo/trop.html In general, epithelial cells become infected only if they contact other cells that have amplify the virus such as fibroblastic reticular cells (FRC) and mononuclear cells. This would be true for skin appendages like hair follicles and sweat glands because they are heavily vascularized and have a lot of FRC networks associated with them. Liver cells and adrenal gland epithelial cells have fibroblastic reticulum as their main connective tissue and both have resident mononuclear cell phagocytes hanging on FRC cells near the blood/epithelial cell interface...end 2014 Germ Nerdier I know the virus can infect epithelium cell monolayers in culture, but I can get HSV to infect any cell in vitro if I try hard enough. However that is not accurate as it is a false system, so it doesn,t mean it is going to happen in a physiological condition. Epithelial cell layers in a plastic dish are not the same as ciliated pseudo stratified columnar epithelium present in the respiratory tract, cells which aren't stagnent on a plate but as a component of the constant mucociliary elevator. So I know it can infect epithelial cells later in infection but was not sure if it could do it cold. In mucosal immunology we see many pathogens enter via M cells and in areas where CCR9 positive dendritic cells actually home to the gut, disrupt the epithelial cells, and then elongate their pseudopods through gut epithelium to sample the lumen of the intestine. Some pathogen utilise this to hitch a ride into the body. Ebola has affinity for DC cells so this is one possible route through the gut. Anyway as previously said I am not taking chance, and these are just my ramblings. |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:55am
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I'm not an expert on immunology, so if sneezing has not been observed, this is a guess: You don't see nasopharyngeal evidence (sneezing from inflammation) of an early phase immune reaction because Ebola doesn't elicit a response until late-stage infection. Coughing, however, has been observed. "A research team led by Sanders and collaborators from the University of Iowa established that the Zaire strain of Ebola virus could enter the epithelial cells that line the human airway in a paper published in the http://jvi.asm.org/content/77/10/5902.long - Journal of Virology in 2003. The experiment used a pseudotyped virus, which was built with the Ebola virus envelope proteins, or outer shell." http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q3/purdue-expert-showed-ebola-can-enter-cells-that-line-the-trachea-and-lungs-says-airborne-transmission-is-not-an-impossibility.html |
Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 12:09pm
I was typing my response to Chuck (CRS, Dr PH) while you were posting yours. I'm not a fast typer. In not a slow typer. I'm a half-fast typer. Anyways, Chuck has worked directly with the authors of that article. But interesting you also found, found the value of, and posted it yourself as well. Thank you. ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: Medclinician2013
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 12:48pm
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Would you like to repeat this and with feeling ? ------------- Medclinician - not if but when - original |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 1:38pm
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Sorry, the link is hardly visible at the bottom of my post. Here it is again: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q3/purdue-expert-showed-ebola-can-enter-cells-that-line-the-trachea-and-lungs-says-airborne-transmission-is-not-an-impossibility.html And (sorry#2) I didn't see part of Hazelpad's post regarding plausibility over possibility. Note: "We were studying at the cellular level how the virus enters cells and showed it could enter human airway epithelial cells," Sanders says. "However, there are many factors beyond its ability to enter these cells that influence how a virus is transmitted. To be airborne it must be present on tiny droplets from a cough or sneeze and must be able to live outside of the body for a certain length of time. This is not how the virus is currently known to spread, but it is evidence that it has some of the necessary components for respiratory transmission." The paper was published in 2003. More recent studies, anectdotal evidence, and revised thinking on aerosolization, bring many to the conclusion that this well could be a factor in the current outbreak. |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 1:50pm
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Question for you Hazelpad, Ebola isn't being suggested as a respiratory virus, so regarding modes of transmission being droplet/droplet nuclei, why does initial infection need to be respiratory if it can 'home to the gut'? Just curious where you were going with that, as Ebola is opportunistic with many different cell types. Your input is very insightful :)
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Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 1:52pm
| Oh Crap! My post order is reversed. I was wondering why some comments seemed to be hanging. |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 1:53pm
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Oneflu, Were you part of the thread/post order discussion in the other forum? What was the setting that changes it back?
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Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 2:34pm
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Thanks for the article and not meaning to be picky but I have 3 main worries about data being extrapolated from this 2003 study you mentioned and applied to a wild type ebola outbreak. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC154009/ So this papers wasnt looking at ebola, its aim was to look for a system to deliver gene therapy direct to the airways of cystic fibrosis sufferes. My three points of concern. Point 1: The epithelial cells they infected were a cell line that bore little resemblance to our cells. No need to read the whole paragraph but skim read you can see how artificial the whole system was, bathed in antibiotics fed by fetal calf serum etc. Standard protocol. Quote :airway epithelia were isolated from trachea or bronchi and were grown at the air-liquid interface as described previously (13). All preparations used were well differentiated (>2 weeks old; resistance > 1,000 Ω-cm2). This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Iowa. A549 and H441 cell lines are derived from human lung carcinomas, and IB3 and HBE cell lines are transformed human airway cells. The cell lines HT1080 (ATCC 12012), HOS (ATCC CRL-1543), IB3 (34), and KB (ATCC CCL-17) were maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (Gibco)-10% fetal bovine serum (FBS). A549 (ATCC CCL-185) cells were maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium F12 (catalog no. 11320-033; Gibco)-10% FBS. H441 (ATCC HTB-174) cells were maintained in RPMI medium (Gibco)-10% FBS. HBE (5) cells were maintained in modified Eagle's medium (Gibco)-10% FBS. In addition, each medium was supplemented with penicillin (100 U/ml) and streptomycin (100 μg/ml). In the FRα-blocking studies, the cells were washed and maintained 72 h in RPMI medium lacking folic acid (Gibco; 27016-021) and 5% FBS prior to the addition of the blocking reagent...bla bka bla So certainty not physiologically normal bronchial epithelial cells by a long shot. Point 2: The virus used was not anywhere close to wild type Ebola, it was not Ebola. It basically a genetically modified feline immunodeficiency virus vector,which was made to express a single surface glycoprotein from Ebola Zaire strain. Not only that but they further modified this glycoprotein by deleting an expansive region from the extracellular domain thought to be heavily O glycosylated. Quote from paper " The deletion of amino acids 309 to 489 from the EBO glycoprotein (EBOΔO) resulted in a marked 74-fold increase in titer over the average titer obtained with the wild-type EBO glycoprotein.... So this construct they used had one molecule from Ebola virus in it, and then that molecule was itself was further modified by deletion of a significant chunk of its genetic material...very far from the wild type virus in the current outbreak Point 3 Artificial infection of the cells. So they now have a epithelium cell line, they have a construct that vaguely resembles one component of Ebola virus, how do they get them together. They bathe them at an exactly thevright concentration of cells, optimum viral particles, at an optimum temperature, for an optimum time. Lot of optimising, no mucus, no enzymes no breathing,no cilia, no coughing_ totally artificial. So I have no problem with the aims of this paper for cystic fibrosis, but to try to deduce anything from this as relevant to natural infection of wild type Ebola is in my view a bit over ambitious. Sorry not being picky but a lot of scared people out there. Hzpad PS sorry didn't quite understand your last question as I am a bit dense sometime, can you rephrase....my fault not yours. |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 3:27pm
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Whoa.. It didn't have to be an Ebola virus as long as it used the Ebola envelope proteins, since that is what enables innoculation into a cell in the first place. Whatever the intention of the paper, it's a moot point and not germaine to the focus on a filovirus envelope facilitating entry. Sequence of cell type involvement in pathogenesis cannot be elucidated based on viral load of FRCs due to their role in the immune response, which filoviruses have evolved to specifically to do just that. That is what I meant by questioning your comment. As for fear mongering: if someone can understand this exchange, they already know enough. Finally, when I said your input was insightful, I meant it. It wasn't sarcasm. I wish I could say the same for your closing remark.
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Posted By: onefluover
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 3:52pm
Yes. Go up to top of thread where it says "author". To right of that is "message". Click it and then click the arrow button next to it to invert thread or undo. ------------- "And then there were none." |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 4:54pm
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Hello again, I am not meaning to make fur fly, but I have to disagree again on a few points. Sorry. Firstly you say Quote : It didn't have to be an Ebola virus as long as it used the Ebola envelope proteins, since that is what enables innoculation into a cell in the first place... I disagree for I don't think it was the Ebola envelope protein in the true wild type sense. This glycoprotein had a huge chunk taken out of it. Their words not mine were " we deleted an expansive region from the extracellular domain" and " The deletion of amino acids 309 to 489 from the protein. In Liberia etc do you think their virus has deletions of this extent in its genome. You can't think this is the same viral glycoprotein it is a genetically modified, modifications that increase infectivity. Secondly you say quote: Whatever the intention of the paper, it's a moot point and not germaine to the focus on a filovirus envelope facilitating entry. Again I have to disagree. The intention of the paper ( to investigate their system for gene delivery in CF patients) is not a moot point, it is the WHOLE point. All the research they have done, all their experimental design, all the modifications they have made, and the conclusions are written around their objective. If they were examining only the ability of filovirus envelope facilitating entry to respiratory epithelium in the context of a natural Ebola infection, they would not have been using genetically modified envelope proteins, except to deduce binding locations. If that had been the aim it would not have been published as the experiments do not fit that hypothesis. Finally I have to disagree when you infer my closing remark was sarcasm. So my closing remark was about me being a bit dolly dimple sometime.....I promise you I meant that in honesty...I can be far away with the fairies at times. Two days ago we had a real important referendum here in Scotland. The instructions were to mark in pencil a cross on the paper and put it unfolded in ballot box.....me I put a tick in pen at the wrong box and fold the paper twice for good measure.....see sometimes nothing in my nogging. Debate is good and I put no personal slant on it. For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism. Genuinely sorry if you felt I was being insincere, which was not my intent. Hzp |
Posted By: Kilt2
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 7:02pm
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http://time.com/3342305/airbone-ebola-not-happening/ - TIME-12 Sep 2014 http://guardianlv.com/2014/09/experts-dispute-the-potential-for-the-ebola-virus-to-go-airborne/ - Experts Dispute the Potential for the - Airborne Guardian Liberty Voice-12 Sep 2014 ------------- And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 9:14pm
Thank you - this has been my biggest bone of contention with regards the whole airborne issue. If it is airborne, why hasn't it acted like it and jumped out of West Africa in almost ten months? Proof of the pudding and all that...  ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 9:25pm
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Just a thought, is there a reason this could not be a possibility. http://www.orkin.com/flies/house-fly/house-fly-and-disease/ Flies and Disease House flies are recognized as carriers of easily communicable diseases. Flies collect pathogens on their legs and mouths when females lay eggs on decomposing organic matter such as feces, garbage and animal corpses. House flies carry diseases on their legs and the small hairs that cover their bodies. It takes only a matter of seconds for them to transfer these pathogens to food or touched surfaces. Mature house flies also use saliva to liquefy solid food before feeding on it. During this process, they transfer the pathogens first collected by landing on offal. Diseases carried by house flies include typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Other diseases carried by house flies include salmonella, anthrax and tuberculosis. House flies have also been known to transmit the eggs of parasitic worms. |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:05pm
| I have also suggested intentional spread is a possibility. I speculate that an intentional spread could circumvent ppe and protocols while mimicking a new airborne capable trait aquired by an evolving organism. I don't know but regardless air borne, aerosolized droplets... Something seems different in that our "developed world" volunteers stated they were following established protocols to protect themselves from infection and have become infected. They attempted to contain as in past outbreaks but it spread. So if it is airborne that's new. Droplet borne probable but that would not be different than past outbreaks i.e. would not be something new maybe just proved possible with ebola. But protocols and containment seemed to work in the past. |
Posted By: CRS, DrPH
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 10:13pm
...maybe your computer has a virus? ------------- CRS, DrPH |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:12pm
| I really wasn't being flip about house fly. When I re-read what I had posted I realized it might be misconstrued i.e. fly and airborne. But I did not mean it that way. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 20 2014 at 11:57pm
| Reston was not an experiment, it was an accident. They received an infected monkey which spread the infection through the whole monkey house. It spread to sections of the lab that were only conneccted by ventilation ducts. Ebola Reston was airborne, it infected humans who developed antibodies but did not get sick. If a single virus particle can infect, someone coughs out particles, a droplet drifts through the air and is breathed in, or goes into the eye, the infection is spread. Look up the definition of airborne disease and than say that it cannot be airborne. It may not cause sneezing, but it causes violent coughing. |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 1:56am
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It was never conclusively proven that Reston spread by airborne transmission. The first shipment of monkeys that arrived at HRC on October 4th came from Ferlite Farms, a primate exporter in the Philippines. They were placed in quarantine in room F, and when they began to die the initial diagnosis was simian hemmorhagic fever. All of the monkeys were euthanized, and shortly after a positive test result for Ebola came back from USMRIID. In the days that followed, more deaths occurred in a separate shipment that arrived 4 days after the room F monkeys, and was quarantined in room H. That's the group that everyone assumes could only have been infected by airborne transmission through ducting connecting the rooms, but the fact is that both shipments came from Ferlite Farms at the same time that the exporter was dealing with an outbreak of hemorrhagic disease in monkeys and humans at it's facility on Mindanao. With an incubation period of 5-7 days in nonhuman primates, it's much more likely that both groups arrived four days apart sub-clinically carrying EBOR than the virus making it's way through the ducts to infect the second group. And remember that you also have to throw into the mix asymptomatically infected handlers and technicians moving freely around HRC's facility potentially infecting monkeys. There are many explanations more plausible than airborne transmission. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 3:22am
------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 4:44am
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This is an easy to read summary combining and comparing the field studies and experiments that many are quoting. Importantly it also includes conclusions from the most recent study done by the group that originally did the pig to monkey experiments, results of which were published in Nature a month ago. Will post links at bottom of article. Pigs And Primates: Addressing The Airborne Ebola Allegation 08.12.2014 Is Ebola Airborne? It's a question of pigs and primate The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has gained international attention, due in part to the recent declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). In turn, public health officials have been asked to enact stricter infection prevention and control measures to ensure spread is minimized. The guidelines stem from the evidence demonstrating the virus can only be transferred through direct contact with bodily fluids and contaminated surfaces and equipment. But while these are widely accepted routes of transmission, another more problematic option continues to be debated. Is Ebola airborne? Airborne infection is a specific form of spread in which an individual becomes infected while maintaining a distance of over six feet from an sick person. The transfer is based on the physical properties of aerosols, defined as a suspension of particles ranging from 0.001 to 100 micrometers in size. In order for this type of spread to occur, the liquid components of aerosols, known as droplets, must be able to defeat gravity and travel greater than a six foot distance. If a droplet is over 60 micrometers, it is a ‘large droplet’ and will fall relatively quickly. If the size is between 10 and 60 micrometers, it is a ‘small droplet’ and it can spread up to six feet. If it is smaller than 10 micrometers, it is a ‘droplet nuclei’ and can spread even further distances. Airborne transmission therefore can only occur through droplet nuclei. The possibility of airborne Ebola infection was first investigated during a 1979 outbreak in South Sudan. The researchers examined the spread of the virus within families and sought to determine if there was any definitive airborne spread. Unfortunately, there was no possible way to prove one way or the other as evidence of close contact precluded any opportunity to identify airborne routes. They concluded transmission through the air may be possible, but highly difficult. In 1995, during an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the question arose yet again. In this case, surveillance of the cases revealed five patients had contracted the virus without direct contact with an infected individual. This suggested there might be the possibility of aerosol transmission. The possibilty was reinforced by an animal study in the same year in which non-direct contact was observed between monkeys. While they authors could not rule out droplet infection, they suggested the airborne route was a definite possibilty. The search for a definitive answer continued for years until a Canadian team published a strong case for airborne transmission. In the study, the group took piglets, infected them with the Ebola virus, and placed them into a room containing cages holding four cynomolgus macaques sitting 4.5 feet above the floor. Over the next two weeks, samples were collected from animals, cages and the air in the hopes of finding the virus. Within seven days, the macaques became rather unwell and virus was detected in their bodily fluids. In addition, virus was found to exist both in the cages and in the air. The results appeared to be conclusive due to several reasons. There was a large separation between the pigs and primates; they could not have had direct contact. There was evidence of virus in the air suggesting the route was airborne. Finally, the macaques became ill with Ebola. It seemed to be a slam dunk. There was, however, one caveat. Pigs are the most efficient species for generation of short-range, large and small droplets capable of traversing the distance between the floor and the cages. There may have been transmission to the macaques through droplets sent upwards. Though this was unlikely,the team could not definitively say Ebola was spread through the airborne route. To attain final confirmation, the team needed to conduct one last experiment. Last month ( Aug 2014 in Nature and link given below)), they reported those findings and learned how a caveat can all but cancel out a conclusion. For those in the airborne transmission camp, this was a rather large no . For this study, the team decided to take the porcine paradox out of the equation. They tested whether the virus could transmit between primates. Sets of two cages were spread across a room with at least 3 feet between them. In one set were infected cynomolgus macaques; in the other were healthy Rhesus macaques. They were kept together for up to 28 days and observed for any signs of transmission. There was, however, none. Not only did the healthy monkeys survive, there was no evidence of any virus transmission in their bodily fluids. In retrospect, the authors believed the use of pigs gave the airborne argument an unfair advantage. Pigs could produce significantly more virus than primates, suggesting a greater chance for droplet spread. In addition, because of the massive amount of shedding pigs display when sick, there was a greater opportunity for the monkeys to become infected through the respiratory tract. However, this type of spread is droplet, not airborne. There was no other option than to conclude Ebola was simply not an airborne virus. Although the question of airborne transmission may be put to rest thanks to this study, there are still concerns for anyone coming within a six foot radius of an infected individual to prevent droplet spread. This means ensuring the use of a mask along with gloves, gown and eye protection and adherence to proper disinfection procedures afterwards. Even if not airborne, Ebola is still one of the most dangerous pathogens and we need to be vigilant and resilient to contain outbreaks and keep new ones from starting. http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140725/srep05824/full/srep05824.html http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/under-microscope/pigs-and-primates-addressing-airborne-ebola-allegation?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=6&con=of-pigs-and-primates-addressing-the-airborne-ebola-allegation As a further note, I understand why they are saying this about pig to human perhaps mode of transmission is different. Look on google pictures of west point and you can see many people live near or with pigs. Perhaps that is something of note. Droplet transmission is not true airborne in an epidemiological sense. If Ebola which requires so few viral particles to transmit were true airborne the Ro number surely would be massive. On top of this many of the infected aid workers suggest they contracted Ebola not while working in the units but outside. Dr Brantley blames the evaluation of patients brought to A&E which was not done in full gear. He had faith, he comforted relatives in a physical way when he shouldn't have, Dr sacra was in maternity, William pooley and the baby story. We have UK doctors who have returned after working 3 month rotations directly with Ebola patients, and they are fine. So far it just doesn't add up to true airborne. That said they are learning all the time during this outbreak, I hope they learn quicker and help these poor people who must be confused and terrified. Hpx |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 5:01am
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What a superbly, definative article. Thanks. To summarise, for those too lazy to read the above. Ebola Transmission: Droplet = Yes Airborne = No QED = Quad Erat Demonstratum = What has been shown to be true. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 5:12am
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this whole argument reminds me of descriptions of medieval churchmen arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin this article settles it for me COMMENTARY: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola - http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/commentary-health-workers-need-optimal-respiratory-protection-ebola this virus may not meet the strict definition of air borne but you damn well better treat it as such especially if you are a health care worker CDC recommendations are killing people pure and simple CIDRAP standards will keep docs and nurses alive pure and simple pick which you should follow your life depends on it We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.1" conventional ways of thinking just don't cut it on this matter think outside the box CIDRAP is so far ahead on this issue it makes WHO and CDC look like rank amateurs and getting control of a disease as deadly as EBOLA is not gonna be achieved by amateurs WHO's failure to recognize the seriousness of this outbreak early on has led to MANY deaths and will probably be responsible for tens of thousands more who ya gonna listen to??? who ya gonna put your faith in ??? " |
Posted By: Germ Nerdier
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 5:47am
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Thank you Satori! I wasn't going to bother to reply again, as this discussion has deteriorated with thinly veiled hostility. But in case my position wasn't clear I'll reiterate a few points, and answer some questions that have been asked. Per the links posted by CRS, Satori, and myself: a paper which very nicely explains aerosolized 'droplet' transmission in proximity to a patient. Per a previous post: 'limited airborne', see above. Response to questions and points: *"It's not germaine" - To this DISCUSSION POINT on whether ZEboV can enter the cells in question. *Proteins were removed - Remove all the proteins you want, it's the ones left intact that matter. It takes only one key fitting to a lock to open a door, and that door was opened. *Manipulated cells in a lab under ideal conditions are not the same as 'wild type' virus in the real world / cell cline (paraphrased): - The proteins were the same. Ideal conditions? After 5000 kicks at the cat, the virus in question has had plenty of opportunity to find an ideal. We already know which cells can be infected. There is overwhelming evidence after decades of study. This is just one of many: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23262834 "This study provides unprecedented insight into pathogenesis of human aerosol Zaire ebolavirus infection and suggests development of a medical countermeasure to aerosol infection will be a great challenge due to massive early infection of respiratory lymphoid tissues" *But it's not human tissue? *Lack of evidence in the field? - I heard they were going to do this study on human subjects, but they're rapidly running out of living HCW volunteers. *People are scared. - Yes they are. So am I. But I'm not standing on the soapbox telling people some horsepucky about fearing "future mutations" and resulting "global pandemic" from a virus that's going to grow fangs, feathers, and a jet pack. As I said before, it doesn't need to mutate to be spread by aerosol. And as I also said before, that means the transmission we are currently seeing is the same transmission we're going to continue to see within the current parameters. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 7:20am
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I don't think it is through stubbornness or lack of insight that they are not advising the use of respirators in west Africa. Respirators have problems of their own. Wearing respirators is not a decision taken lightly from what I have read there are health hazards involved which are greatly amplified by the conditions these medics are working under in West Africa. With respirators the lungs and heart have to work much harder. For example the amount of dead space in respirators is the amount of expired air that must be rebreathed before fresh air is obtained. Additionally masks with positive pressure features means more resistance to overcome, making harder breathing. The temperature of inspired air in the masks is alarming at around 49°C, which can results in heat stress, as you lose ability to breath cool air. Face masks get hot but not like that. Blood pressure, resp rate, and heart rate significantly increases in these masks, The pulmonary and cardiac effects of wearing respirators are amplified by temperature and time wearing equipment, and may mean genuine risk of spontaneous pneumothorax and risk of barotrauma, sudden death when working in hostile hot environments. Asthmatic people could not wear them under these conditions, either could medics with suboptimal health. Respirators also restrict visual fields, effect vocal communication and decrease awareness of surroundings. Hearing is also impaired, and they can give feelings of depersonalisation ( spaced out). Concentration can become harder. An important consideration is panic. Respirators are restrictive to breathing and uncomfortable. They often produce panic attacks both because people are breathing higher concentrations of warm carbon dioxide, and also because psychological they are in an already stressful situation and they can feel they are being chocked by the restricted breathing. Panic is not uncommon in people wearing respirators, something firemen, military etc are trained to overcome. I am sure thoses with military backgrounds know the ins and outs but sometimes it is hard to predict who will react that way...and you don't want untrained health professionals panicking in an Ebola ward while taking someone's blood. So it is not just a case of sticking respirators on people, when they themselves could create a whole set of different problems. At the moment the benefit risk assessment they have done weighs down on not recommending respirators, and it will be interesting to see how and if that changes. That said I am a huge hippocrite for if it were me I would prefer a respirator, however would not like to be stuck in Ebola ward with a panicking collegue. Hzpad |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 1:32pm
| It's a mute point as by the looks of the way things are going we will find out first hand anyway. Of course if you add in co-infection with coughing and sneezing symptoms due to influenza and the point becomes not quite so mute. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 4:04pm
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Hi Germ Nerdier sorry for delay in reply but had to get all the kids to bed before reading your article. Firstly I am sorry about getting your name wrong it is the automatic word processing....... However I can see how being called Been Nerdier by my word processor may have offended, the blame I assure you is technology. I do however fail to see how the discussion has deteriorated and you feel thin veiled hostility.... I am sorry you feel like that. I am only disagreeing with some of the points, an active discussion. Surely I have a right to challenge in a non aggressive respectful way. You were happy to quote and rapidly dismiss my post and bluntly claim I was simply wrong by attaching the 4 words " IT DOES INFECT EPITHELIUM." You then posted in quick succession some articles and I read them, then posted back my opinion on your evidence, which I feel is weak. The lab I am in revels in debate, when we peer review articles I admit we can be a bit harsh, and our lab meetings are no place to go with a hangover. We have been called pit bulls cause we do argue amongst ourselves, ( though none of us look as good as blue Louie) I am sorry if you feel hostility but I am only disagreeing with the scientific evidence you presented. I am not being personal or deteriorating the topic as you suggest. So back to the science. We can agree to disagree on the point about the ebola anchor glycoprotein. You say it was an intact protein, but did you read what they did to the actual protein, it was not intact, it was extensively genetically altered, the amino acids ( building blocks of the protein), in the tail end were chopped off, How can it be intact when they chopped the tail off. Also why did they need to alter it to get it into the respiratory epithelial cells, perhaps because the original natural Ebola glycoprotein couldn't anchor. The genetic sequence of this glycoprotein they created doesn't fit the sequence on genebank, so it is no longer an Ebola glycoprotein hence why in the authors had to change its name to (EBOΔO). We will also disagree with the cell line used. Of course I am not saying use humans as you perhaps slightly sarcasticly suggested, but there are better 3D culture systems available, invasive assays etc which are more realistic than basic experimentally primitive monocultures which they used. So in summary lets agree to disagree. On your side you feel the paper demonstrates clearly that wild type Ebola can infect respiratory epithelium, on my side I feel it does not and was never the aim of this cystic fibrosis funded paper to do that.....we are both entitled to think as we think. The other article (2013) which you added in your last post and which you claim shows that I am again wrong and that Ebola does infect respiratory epithelium was interesting. At the risk of offending you again, I am really sorry but I just don't think it does. So in this paper they were not saying Ebola naturally infects by the respiratory route, in fact in the introduction they clearly state " aerosol exposure as a means of human infection has never been documented". They wanted to devise a model to artificially push virus down into resp tract. They did this for a good reason. Not because they think it occurs in nature but because Ebola could be weaponised to be airborne. If this occured how would they know how to treat victims. So this study was to show how it would act in humans after this type of entry. ( weapon grade pathogens are very different to wild type, adding tissue tropism for resp tract is a real fear of a biological weapon.). This potential future threat of a weaponised ebola engineered as a resp virus is taken seriously, and actually what they are referring to in your quote from the paper. They were NOT talking about natural Ebola infection, they are talking about a potential military weapon .This is a US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases study. I quote from the same paper: Aerosol exposure as a means of human infection has never been documented. EBOV, however along with several other highly pathogenic agents, has the potential to be used in biowarfare as aerosolized weapons and are therefore classified as biological select agents and toxins (BSATs). So the study was always a " what if study" Now if you look in the methods section of the paper this is important for it shows what they actually had to do to get Ebola to infect the respiratory lymphoid tissue ( lymphoid not outer respiratory epithelium) of their monkeys ( bloody shame).. They put them in a sealed head only chamber then they nebulised a large quantity of the virus forcing it through a 3 JET SYSTEM shooting it forcfully down into the lungs. From here it seems to have gained access to the respiratory draining lymph nodes, probably taken there by engulfment by lung resident alveolar macrophages and antigen presenting cells whose job is to home to lymph nodes. I also presume damage by the jet nebuliser would have ruptured endothelium, a cell type we know Ebola does have high affinity for. I just can't see anywhere in the paper that it can enter or did enter respiratory epithelium. If it could surely there would not have been needed to jet hose the poor monkeys, just squirted it up their nose, like they seem to do for true respiratory viruses. Respiratory associated lymphoid tissue ( where it showed up 48hrs post exposure in monocytes and macrophages) is part of the common mucosal immune system, so you could even argue some virus may have entered via the gut ( mouth is also in head chamber) and migrated there ( there is a common motorway between gut and resp lymphatics). Perhaps I am wrong I do not work on such things as live animals. However I am still not convinced about your initial statement to me that the Ebola virus displays tissue tropism for respiratory epithelium. So let's agree to disagree and respect each others opposing opinion. Therhere no veiled hostility and I can only apologise if it came across that their was. This forum is so diverse and that is its strength, everyone has their own opinion and expertise. As I said it helped me as a pregnant woman surrounded by H1N1 back in 2009. I thought I was going nuts with my concerns that up till then noone had taken seriously, until I came here and read like minded people. There is no hostility from me. Hzpad |
Posted By: CRS, DrPH
Date Posted: September 21 2014 at 6:50pm
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Here's more on the bodily fluids in humans contaminated with EBV: http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full - http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/196/Supplement_2/S142.full Although Ebola virus (EBOV) is transmitted by unprotected physical contact with infected persons, few data exist on which specific bodily fluids are infected or on the risk of fomite transmission. Therefore, we tested various clinical specimens from 26 laboratory-confirmed cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, as well as environmental specimens collected from an isolation ward, for the presence of EBOV. Virus was detected by culture and/or reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction in 16 of 54 clinical specimens (including saliva, stool, semen, breast milk, tears, nasal blood, and a skin swab) and in 2 of 33 environmental specimens.We conclude that EBOV is shed in a wide variety of bodily fluids during the acute period of illness but that the risk of transmission from fomites in an isolation ward and from convalescent patients is low when currently recommended infection control guidelines for the viral hemorrhagic fevers are followed. ------------- CRS, DrPH |
Posted By: newbie1
Date Posted: September 22 2014 at 10:52pm
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Ok here is a (likely truly) stupid question... Back in summer there was discussion of scientists looking for host etc. As we are talking here about 'spreaders' (sorry no idea what tech name would be)... could blowflies carry it? Not trying to sound moronic here, but when you watch World Vision etc on tv - they always have flies crawling out of mouths, eyes. If it only takes one fomite to infect the next person - couldn't a blow fly crawling on a body or a sick person waiting outside a hospital get it onto legs/body and then when landing on next person - deposit to them (microscopic cuts on hands etc)???? So the blowfly would act as pollinator with people being flowers so to speak? If this is a possible way it's spreading, it won't travel that way here (after freeze up) in fall till good thawing in spring - so about 5-6 months at least. but then it lives on door handles etc longer in cold... not good either way ------------- Cherish each moment |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 12:33am
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http://theliberiandialogue.org/2014/08/02/ebola-crisis-prevention-awareness-education-is-the-only-cure/ Means of Transmission Ebola-Zaire is also the most contagious, infectious disease in the Ebola family. It can be transmitted from person-to-person directly and indirectly. The first direct means involves eating monkeys, fruit bats, chimpanzees, and other animals that host Ebola virus. The second direct means of transmission is through blood and bodily fluids of the symptom bearer. The term “bodily fluids” means sweat, saliva, and semen transmitted to a healthy person through sexual contacts, kissing, and hugging by an Ebola symptom bearer. Other direct means of fluid contacts include sharing of household items such as spoons, plates, water cups, clothing, underclothes, toilet seats, bathing towels, and even bed-sharing with a symptom bearer. Mosquito and insect bites as well as flies, mice, and cockroaches coming in contact with an Ebola symptom bearer, and also coming in contact with a healthy person have also shown to be a direct means of fluid contacts. The indirect fluid contact involves sneezing or coughing in the face of a healthy person by a symptom bearer. Contaminated equipment at health centers treating Ebola victims can also transmit virus to a healthy person. |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 12:39am
| Nuwbie1 I had about the same question on page 2. I did search the above is what I found. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 2:15am
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Guys this is all semantics airborne or droplet transmission. If you are near a patient with Ebola and they sneeze or cough and droplets get on you or an item you touch you can get Ebola. I work in a school and I can tell you kids spray their sneezes and coughs all over other kids and teachers. I have been sick for 3 weeks now from a kid who coughed on me! There is another adult at our school who is as sick as me. I have been out of work for 9 days out of 12. I tried going back to work and got worse! I run a low grade fever if I do any physical work, am coughing, sinuses are still running green, and I sleep all day and most of the night. I have been on an antibiotic for 15 days, prednisone for 3 days and an inhaler for 3 days. So if Ebola gets to America we will be in trouble if kids get it because parents send their kids to school even when ill. They HAVE to go to work so they just drop their sick kids off to infect others. I don't see how we will avoid Ebola going around the world especially if it gets to India or China. We must get ready to SIP if this happens. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 2:30am
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Dead right (literally) if you are near a patient with ebola. Droplet/airborne does affect the decision to SIP though. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 6:27am
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I think FluMom and Techno nailed it. If you're face to face with someone who's coughing out droplets, then you're at risk of transmission via your eyes, nose or mouth (eeww...). If you handle something that droplets have settled on and then touch you mouth/ rub your eye - same result. But sheltering in place to avoid infection from this seems overkill when basic precautions can stop it's transmission. You'd also want to consider SIP if the situation got dangerous with respect to shortages and looters, but I honestly don't see Ebola ever doing that much damage in the West on it's own. Save your preps for whatever the birds are brewing up for us, FluMom. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 6:28am
Grossed myself out now thinking about getting a droplet of someone else's snot in my mouth  ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 7:15am
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Atichoo.... Miaow! Yeuch!!! ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Medclinician2013
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 8:43am
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There have been over 250 genetic changes to the Ebola virus within a short period. Our knowledge of viruses does not extend to some obscure viruses that may have been encountered from ancient Egypt on the opening of tombs and also we are losing the war creating antivirals. With the coming of 1.2 million cases of Ebola possibly just in Africra, airborne or not, we could still have a Pandemic. CDC is taking airborne precautions because they are worrried and it has been demonstrated that this virus can be transmitted through the air species to species by a Canadian research team. So it's the first - http://globalbiodefense.com/2012/11/19/canadian-study-shows-airborne-transmission-of-ebola/ - http://globalbiodefense.com/2012/11/19/canadian-study-shows-airborne-transmission-of-ebola/ Breakthrough research from the Canadian National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease and the National Microbiology Laboratory has raised concerns about possible airborne inter-species transmission of the deadly Ebola virus. The researchers demonstrated transmission of the Zaire strain of
Ebola from pigs to macaques without direct contact between them. Pigs
inoculated with the Ebola virus were kept physically separated but in
close proximity to the monkeys, all of which contracted the illness. This was the Zaire strain. The current mutation is not the same and behaves differently as it will as it continues to change. It is already an epidemic. Our current situation with jet travel and the ability of diseases to be very mobile with many thousands of West Africans, some of them infected, increases the chances of infection in another part of the world and then more epidemics. Medclinician ------------- Medclinician - not if but when - original |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 9:29am
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MODE OF TRANSMISSION: In an outbreak, it is hypothesized that the first patient becomes infected as a result of contact with an infected animal (15). Person-to-person transmission occurs via close personal contact with an infected individual or their body fluids during the late stages of infection or after death (1, 2, 15, 27). Nosocomial infections can occur through contact with infected body fluids due to the reuse of unsterilized syringes, needles, or other medical equipment contaminated with these fluids (1, 2). Humans may be infected by handling sick or dead non-human primates and are also at risk when handling the bodies of deceased humans in preparation for funerals, suggesting possible transmission through aerosol droplets (2, 6, 28). In the laboratory, infection through small-particle aerosols has been demonstrated in primates, and airborne spread among humans is strongly suspected, although it has not yet been conclusively demonstrated (1, 6, 13). The importance of this route of transmission is not clear. Poor hygienic conditions can aid the spread of the virus (6). PREPARED BY: Pathogen Regulation Directorate, Public Health Agency of Canada.
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Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 1:35pm
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This Canadian group did 3 pieces of research and it is strange why people are stopping after the second part of their study not reading the work they did after the 2012 study which lots are referring to. They published the final piece of the puzzle just this year in March in Nature. SAME CANADIAN GROUP finished their research. This was the final chapter in summary. Quote: the Canadian team needed to conduct one last experiment. For this study, the team decided to take the pig paradox out of the equation. They tested whether the virus could transmit between primates. Sets of two cages were spread across a room with at least 3 feet between them. In one set were infected macaques; in the other were the healthy macaques. They were kept together for up to 28 days and observed for any signs of transmission. There was, however, none. Not only did the healthy monkeys survive, there was no evidence of any virus transmission in their bodily fluids. In retrospect, the authors believed their original use of pigs had given the airborne argument an unfair advantage. Pigs could produce significantly more virus than primates, suggesting a greater chance for droplet spread. In addition, because of the massive amount of shedding pigs display when sick, there was a greater opportunity for the monkeys to become infected through the respiratory tract. However, this type of spread is droplet, not airborne. There was no other option than to conclude Ebola was simply not an airborne virus. Although the question of airborne transmission may be put to rest thanks to this study, there are still concerns for anyone coming within a six foot radius of an infected individual to prevent droplet spread. This means ensuring the use of a mask along with gloves, gown and eye protection and adherence to proper disinfection procedures afterwards. Even if not airborne, Ebola is still one of the most dangerous pathogens and we need to be vigilant and resilient to contain outbreaks and keep new ones from starting. So droplet transmission and airborne may seem like picking hairs, but epidemiologically they are miles apart. It matters a huge deal. You don't contact trace in airborne and you stand no chance of containment in one region for long within weeks it is global, because the secondary cases, tertiary cases with airborne numbers are geographically very wide spread. Not seeing this yet. For example take Freetown in Sierra Leone a city of 1 million but only 10 Ebola cases in last 6 months, whereas the villages surrounding it are getting hammered, with collectively 110 cases in the outskirts last week alone. If true airborne no chance city would have been spared this long. http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140725/srep05824/full/srep05824.html http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/under-microscope/pigs-and-primates-addressing-airborne-ebola-allegation?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=6&con=of-pigs-and-primates-addressing-the-airborne-ebola-allegation |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 2:08pm
Well said, Hazelpad  ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 2:48pm
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Yes, it is not nit-picking when the differences magnify at each transmission (or near miss). ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 3:01pm
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The study with the pigs that people are quoting does highlight an important point, i.e. that pigs can transmit easier than primates. The Canadian group research concluded that unless you’re sitting close to an Ebola-infected pig, then serious, airborne transmission ( as in over 6 feet), of Ebola viruses isn’t a big concern. So what about infected pigs, could they be adding to the transmission chain ? Pig farming on large and small scale has been a fast growing industry in West Africa in recent times. If these pigs are superspreaders able to sneeze out high loads of viable infectious material_ which can then survive on surfaces....just a thought. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 3:04pm
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Makes sense to me! ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: pheasant
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 3:59pm
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I have been thinking of pigs for a couple days..........Oh, that was the BBQ ribs i made this weekend. Pig statistics world wide (yes there is a world pig site)..... Congo, Dem R 953,066 Sierra Leone 52,000 Nigeria 5,100,000 Niger 39,000 Liberia 130,000 Ghana 324,000 Congo, Rep 46,000 this is from 2002, lots of pretty pink mixing vessels. ------------- The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself......FDR |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 4:13pm
And about three quarters of a BILLION in China already acting as mixing vessels for all kinds of nasties...  ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 10:01pm
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Hello Albert, Albert you wrote to me on another thread : Quote :Hazelpad, Germ nerd is pretty sharp on these. She's too upset though. Do you mean she is upset about me challenging her science articles in a topic where she claimed Ebola infected upper respiratory epithelium. Just in case you are then I had better say something in return. Have you read over them if you have concerns. You will see my initial post is bluntly dismissed by an unproven a statement. I don't give a toss about her curt reply, but I do care about the science. So I had the right to reply and in a nice way I asked for proof, thinking I must be wrong as I hadn't known Ebola could act in that manner. I was duly linked to articles which I read but they were disapointing, and Ifelt inappropriate to the topic. In my opinion they had been cherry picked of quotes. ( I admit in my work I do have to daily read and examine multidisapline pubmed articles, usually with emphasis on experimental designs, controls, and authors over extrapolating for funding is always apparent in these papers etc). Anyway I felt the studies presented to me by the poster did not match or were not relevant and had been taken out of context. On trying to highlight where I honestly thought the papers ( not the poster), had failed, hoping to get some debate, out of the blue I had words such as 'veiled hostility" flung at me, and was also accused of being sarcastic, honestly go read it. Despite this ( rattle out the pram) attitude, I apologised over 5 times in further posts. I can do no more. I can't pander to any form of emotional censorship. I never swore, or said anything nasty. I have never come across this sort of reaction before, seemed a bit random to me. I am not stepping on anyones toes. The diversity of this forum is great, the collective experiences from so many backgrounds makes it interesting. My background is in mucosal immunology, but I don't know hehaw about much else....except maybe how to produce rabid kids who never do as their told...I have a talent for that. I have been a guest on this forum for 5 years and only brave enough to join and start posting in the last month or so. Albert there were people on this forum this afternoon at each others throats and one calling another member an apologist who was no better than the apologists for the NAZI atrocities from WWII, ........in comparison my exchange was rather tame and at all times respectful. Again however I apologise, for the sixth time now, if I questioned the articles in a way that offended anyone.....the posts are on the link. Ebola will not go airborne. Correct me if I am wrong. |
Posted By: Diligent
Date Posted: September 23 2014 at 10:07pm
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The average virus particle weighs about 10 fentograms. That weight is not very much. |
Posted By: Dutch Josh
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 7:56am
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/scientists-warn-ebola-transmission-may-be-airborne-urge-full-respirators-for-frontline-health-workers/5403925 - http://www.globalresearch.ca/scientists-warn-ebola-transmission-may-be-airborne-urge-full-respirators-for-frontline-health-workers/5403925 “We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing http://www.naturalnews.com/respirators.html - respirators , not facemasks,” they wrote, citing an earlier paper Dr. Brosseau published in the American Journal of Infection Control. ------------- We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 9:12am
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I know this was posted in all honesty Josh, but the article itself is not honest. In 2012 the scientists who did the original Reston experiments went back and finished the job. Hazlepad publishes the details about 11 posts ago on this very thread. Respirators are probably a good idea as droplet infection is common close-up, but most of the medical practitioners who have caught the virus did so meeting and treating asymptomatic sufferers. They wore no gear for that as they assumed they were safe. The problem comes/came because the WHO keeps telling us that it is not contagious until symptoms show and THAT piece of information is clearly wrong. It has been demonstrated wrong and is not in keeping with the knowledge already held about viral transmission in general. It does present an airborne vector when pigs are infected as it makes them sneeze, but that does not mean H2H airborne transmission. Sorry to jump on the post but this type of irresponsible, panic mongering and probably deliberate misinterpreting of the facts is all too common in the current press. As a point of interest I generally look forward to your posts as reasoned and intelligent. I do not blame you for this reporter's BS. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Satori
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 9:40am
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recommendations for the use of respirators for health care professionals comes form CIDRAP hardly a fly by night organization lets go to Africa you wear a gown ,gloves and an N95 I'll follow CIDRAP recommendations I wonder who will come home alive ??? to paraphrase Darwin its not the biggest or strongest who necessarily survive its the ones who recognize quickly that change has occurred and rapidly adapt to the new rules and lets not ignore this inconvenient little FACT when dealing with ebola in a research setting its always done in a biolevel 4 right ? but when dealing with it in the field or in a hospital biolevel 4 suddenly is irrelevant ??? stand back and watch the corpses pile up adapt or DIE |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 10:34am
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A lot of people wondering how health care workers getting sick. The highest toll in this group has been in the unit in Kenema. Below is extracted from a recent article from Dr Daniel Bausch. He is an infectious disease expert who has worked in Uganda with Ebola and has been working for months in Sierra Leone and Liberia Ebola wards. This is someone working prolonged in the epidemic epicentre and daily in isolation wards. He is a friend of Dr Khan. He describes below 2 doctors to 60 highly infectious Ebola patients, with no other support staff to clean up the vomit and diarrhoea on the floor they walking about in. Full link given at end, article is really good, and horrifically sad. So here is what he said to the question How do health care workers, who we're told are incredibly proficient at their job, end up getting infected with Ebola? Is there something going on that we don't completely understand. Quote. A lot of focus has been placed on the PPE — the personal protective equipment — you know, the masks and gloves and gowns, and things like that. But it's overly simplistic to say those don't work, or the virus is different. If you go into that situation in Kenema, once a few health care workers get sick, you get into this really negative cycle. So you're working in a ward, somebody gets sick, dies. The next day, not many people [come to] work. And then it gets into a negative cycle where the ward gets even more unsafe. Because a safe ward, it's not only about masks and gowns and gloves, it's about having the right proportion of health care workers to the patients, it's about having sanitation workers. You go into a ward, it's not unusual to see that someone has fallen out of bed or in delirium has crawled out of bed. They can be on the floor soiled with stool or vomitus or blood. And what should happen is that a team of three or four or five different people, all with the sanitation officer who has some bleach to spray, comes over, carefully decontaminates that area, carefully gets this patient back into a bed. But when I was in Kenema last month, myself and one other doctor, we got gowned up to go in and do our rounds. And unbeknownst to us, the nurses had gone on strike again. We go in, there's about 60 patients with Ebola in the ward, [and] he and I are the only two health care workers that are there. The analogy I've been using, it's like saying, well, you've trained somebody to be a pilot. So there's the plane, go fly the plane, without thinking: What about mechanics? What about the other people who have to guide the plane down the runway? You don't have all the very important supporting personnel that you need for [Ebola], and so it's been a tragic situation There was a day when I was in Kenema last month where I thought we just need to close this [hospital]; it's just not ethical to keep doing this with health care workers getting infected. But what do you do? You have 60 people who have Ebola. What do you do with them? Do you say, "Go back to your home"? If you send them all home, that's infecting five more people in each household. So you try to get things as safe as you can [in the hospital] and soldier on we do. http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/09/22/349882298/dr-daniel-bausch-knows-the-ebola-virus-all-too-well |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 10:56am
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Another section of the article I posted above also talks about the funerals in this region. It is not just people touching, kissing and hugging the corpse. People can also wash the corpse, collect the water, and then bathe in the water. It is this behaviour they are trying to stop. These poor people are thinking through the thought processes of grief, their desision to honour their loved ones , or dishonour them because some foreign aid worker tells them not to. |
Posted By: Medclinician2013
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 11:27am
It appears that Ebola did go airborne among primates and was transferred through the venilation system to other apes that were not even in the same room and became infected in 1989. There is a good reason why CDC is taking precautions and wearing masks - there may be limited spread through the air. However, what is more significant is that we may not need to start a serious Pandemic as infected people fly back from West Africa. As oppossed to almost dogmatic religious statemtent is cannot and never well be airborne, the incident in 1989 shows it can. People here don't as a rule touch dead bodies. They do not do burials themselves and yet, in health care facilities, a doctor catching it is not that different than the U.S. If we start bringing them back in greater numbers, health care workers are going to get infected. I, for the record, do not think we are safe from the spread of this in the U.S. I told people about the Pandemic in 2009 and both CDC and WHO were in continual denial until it was declared a Pandemic. Also, I have several sources that this is contagious before one becomes symptomatic for up to 21 days. I will post more on this on my thread. Medclinician ------------- Medclinician - not if but when - original |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 11:27am
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Good article, Hazelpad. I get the impression that many people think clinics in Africa are all following protocol to the letter, when in fact they're not much more than understaffed field hospitals in what amounts to a war zone right now. The virus is finding numerous chinks in the HCW's armor because of the sub-optimal conditions that exist there. It's not the virus or the PPE - it's the crappy conditions these truly heroic people are forced to work in. Kent Brantly believes he caught Ebola outside of the isolation unit while admitting ER patients without full PPE. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 24 2014 at 12:01pm
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Med - the two groups of monkeys at HRC came from the same exporters four days apart, and that facility in the Philippines had an outbreak of hemorrhagic disease in both animals and humans at the time of the shipments. It's far more likely that the monkeys arrived at HRC already infected and at different stages of the incubation period than Reston Ebola managing to make it's way through the ventilation ductwork. Subsequent testing of HRC staff found asymptomatic human infections too - could they not have conceivably spread it as they worked with the animals? Of all the possible explanations, airborne transmission is by far the least likely. BL4 is for pathogens for which there is no vaccine or cure that cause severe illness or death in humans - they may be airborne, but they may also be primarily transmitted by droplets contacting mucous membranes (like Nipah) or even needle sticks. ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: Dutch Josh
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 2:59am
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In the 17th century there was a discussion about light; is light a matter or a wave. It turned out to be both. This discussion about Ebola reminds me of that discussion. Maybe Ebola is not airborne like the cold or the flu but could it be wise, considering the spread, to treat it like it is airborne just to be safe ? I admit that I do not know enough about virusses but "a war of words"might not be helpfull ? I understand that also when someone might spread the virus is one of the many questions; even without symptoms someone with the Ebola virus might be spreading it ? ------------- We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 3:39am
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I think you are right, Josh. I think we are all agreed that it is contagious BEFORE symptoms occur. Lets just call it limited airborne instead of droplet transmission. The debate on semantics is tiresome. My only stipulation here is: Droplet transmission/limited airborne means sheltering in place will work, whereas it would be stupid in an infection which was truly airborne, unless you had a bunker with porcelain air filters. This site is stuffed to the gills with preppers, we even call ourselves "AFTers", as we will come out again after! Most of us have the bug-in and bug-out preps. If we assume the virus is fully airborne then bugging-out gives a minutely increased chance of survival, if you can get far enough away, though the risks of contagion by other ways make this a very RISKY option and it is irresponsible to the community at large too, as it will spread the virus almost all of the travellers will pick up in transit. Most who do this will die. If we accept its ability to travel by air is very limited, assuming no idiot has deliberately aerosolised/weaponised it, Bugging-in becomes a very SAFE option. It is important to remember that this virus is very efficient at transmitting itself by ALL body fluids and the foamites/residue they leave, and that it is contagious BEFORE symptoms appear. There is a reason I keep on argueing. I confess I am getting very, very tired of it. Again and again I repeat myself as people quote the members of the press who "DO NOT GET IT!", reporting on science they fail to understand, from scientists using poor methodology. Arguements which had been conclusively disproven keep re-emerging. So I give up. If people want to convince themselves it is fully airborne/ becoming fully airborne they can be my guest. I have had enough of repeating myself. I shall just bug-in and wait to see who makes it with me. Sorry Jacksdad, Your echo has developed laryngitis! I know you care deeply, but you can't save the determinedly suicidal. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 4:03am
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My Favourite expression happens to be Technophobe's tag line. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Apply that to the limited airborne argument and we have our answer. |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 5:11am
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I also like the saying "if you hear hoofprints don't think zebras think horses." It is not about us here on a forum saying airborne vs droplet vs direct contact. The reason these differences exist and are defined is for governments trying to target resources, which until recently were scraping the barrow. If it true airborne, in the numbers we are seeing, then one consequence is that they wouldn't contact trace and isolate anymore, and they would stop door to door education on direct contact avoidance. There would be no point wasting money as even avoiding physical interactions is not going to stop airborne contamination. Instead most resources would be transfered into treatment rather than a containment plan. So what if it is not airborne, you are then condemning people to a fate that they maybe able to avoid, through quarantine of contacts, and education about burial practices, contact, hand hygiene. etc. So following the old "Absence of proof is not proof of absence." thought process in this scenario may be a bit simplistic, and cause further harm. Before throwing water on fire you should know what is burning. However we are not the policy makers. Good points on both sides of debate, and guess it is up to each of us to make up our own mind. I agree there is not any evidence of airborne, others feel there clearly is, fair dos. PS Just to clarify this does not mean that I personally rule out short range disperse via aerosols from violent diarrhea and projectile vomiting, toilet flushing, getting into eyes mouth mucus membranes etc, just not full airborne. I will also leave this debate here, have said enough on the topic, let others speak. |
Posted By: Dutch Josh
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 7:05am
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Are there "degrees of being airborne" for virusses ? A sort of scale on wich flu and cold score high and Ebola would score low or "not" ? What influences if a virus gets airborne ? Its weight ? Its ability to survive outside in the air ? Or are these not all to clever questions ? ------------- We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 7:17am
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"I also like the saying "if you hear hoofprints don't think zebras think horses" Unless you're in Africa.
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Posted By: arirish
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 7:51am
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Josh- I think your questions are spot on! One very important factor is the size of the virus. Influenza A virons are 20 nm in diameter and 200 to 300 (–3000) nm long and Ebola is 80nm in diameter and can be up to 14,000 nm in length. Obviously the smaller the virus the easier it is to aerosolize. ------------- Buy more ammo! |
Posted By: jacksdad
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 8:11am
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It's alright, Techno - I'm almost at the same point. Can't say we didn't try ------------- "Buy it cheap. Stack it deep" "Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
Posted By: arirish
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 9:48am
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Here's a good paper on airborne, droplet and contact transmission! "Viral infections acquired indoors through airborne, droplet or contact transmission" http://www.scielosp.org/pdf/aiss/v49n2/a04v49n2.pdf - http://www.scielosp.org/pdf/aiss/v49n2/a04v49n2.pdf ------------- Buy more ammo! |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 10:32am
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Let's End It I will remain unknown in the best interests of finally ending this debate. Droplet: confirmed Fomite: confirmed Cell infection: confirmed Wash a chicken and infect your kitchen: confirmed Catch Ebola from someone coughing or sneezing on you: confirmed Dog hair is small enough to float on air currents? : confirmed Ebola is smaller than dog hair?: confirmed. Case closed.
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Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 10:37am
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Re: I also like the saying "if you hear hoofprints don't think zebras think horses" Unless you're in Africa..... Now that was a good one....but let me tweek that last statement just a wee bit for you... "if you hear hoofprints don't think zebras think horses" .....Unless you are roaming about the grassy plains of sub-Saharan Africa. In Liberia and Sierra Leone I am afraid its likely still to be plain old horses. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 10:44am
| You're trying too hard. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 10:46am
| The forested area runs from cental Africa, west to the coast... W. Africa. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 11:12am
| ..will give you time to research and counter :) |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 11:12am
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I am getting bored ....google your zebra range, or why not do some research into pseudo-science. Xxx |
Posted By: Hazelpad
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 11:26am
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Let me know if you need the definition of pseudo-science. I leave the floor to you .....I have to go out, but it has been fun, thanks for the banter, a nice bit of light relief.... I did like your Africa comment though...give you that one...it was good. |
Posted By: Technophobe
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 12:03pm
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I promised to stop argueing Airborne. But I will defend Hazelpad. SHE IS A SCIENTIST WORKING WITH VIRUSES. If she relied on an encyclopedia from the 70s she would not be here to argue. ------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving. |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 1:07pm
| Blind faith is a frightening thing regardless of the religion ( god, science, government). I see both sides of this argument. I for my self believe Ebola is Scarry. I can make the argument that a housefly can carry Ebola therefore it is airborne. Would that help the discussion? Probably not. But a discussion of what the definition of airborne is, or how we define airborne under a specific set of parameters might help. Words like in vivo/in vitro, Effectively airborne, aerosolized airborne particles, yes some would say semantics others might say better communication. Apples to apples oranges to oranges |
Posted By: drumfish
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 1:35pm
| If I was on the ground in west Africa knowing what I know I would consider it airborne. From an ocean away I would not consider it as airborne as a cold or the flu. I believe if it was as airborne as the cold or flu it would have been here months ago and I would already be dead. |
Posted By: CRS, DrPH
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 10:35pm
You first! I wouldn't go to Africa for love nor money! Last time I was there (Egypt, 1979) I had myself vaccinated for smallpox first, even though it was theoretically eradicated. This is looking worse every time I read the news updates....all we can do is watch. Be safe, Chuck ------------- CRS, DrPH |