Ebola outbreak

[Juliajms]

I think a lot of people do know that. Ebola news has been on CNN everyday, since at least last spring. I figure health officials thought it would be like previous outbreaks and burn itself out. I thought that was the case back in the spring too, but over the summer it became clear that the global community had to step in. It just seems that's been unconscionably slow to happen. Maybe there are reasons for that, I don't know since I'm far from an expert. It's certainly frustrating to watch people die and more children be orphaned, while world health organizations get their acts together though.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

The guy in Texas died. Frankly it pissed me off that he lied to get here (and possibly his family lied as well). So I'm not really to upset by the news. If I were in Texas and especially in the city where he was I'd be furious at all of them for potentially exposing my loved ones to such a horrific disease.

Hopefully the government will do their best to prevent it from occurring again but I won't hold my breath.

[ellabelle]

It's going to happen again, and it will happen again here.

You cannot stop every person who has been in western Africa in the last 21 days from coming into the United States. You can't stop people from leaving Spain (where a nurse who treated a now-dead Ebola patient has the disease herself). Hell, you can't stop people from leaving Dallas! You can put out travel advisories and treat western Africa like a war zone people are strongly advised to avoid, but if you keep missionaries, doctors, aid groups and humanitarians out, the situation there will only continue to worsen - and the worse it gets there, the more desperate people will become as they seek a way out. You can't stop international trade and the moving of goods and services from place to place because of disease - it would cripple the world economy. So as long as we have trade, we have people moving around and the potential for them to become ill or spread disease.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Theoretically you can but it would be very difficult and it would be very costly to the economy....I completely understand that argument/rationale. I just think there's got to be something we can do.

[ellabelle]

One of the co-discoverers of Ebola is quoted in HuffPost as saying: "We urgently need to scale up the provision of skills and resources to bring the humanitarian catastrophe under control. We must build field hospitals and Ebola care units, send health-care staff, medical supplies and logistical coordination, as well as supporting governments and NGOs to stop Ebola transmission through community mobilization to avoid risky funeral and care practices." -- London, October

In terms of the rest of the world, it seems like medical error is playing a large role: Thomas Duncan told the hospital in Dallas he'd been in Liberia but that information wasn't properly conveyed and he was sent home. The nurse's assistant in Spain who has Ebola has admitted that she may have touched her face with a gloved hand while removing protective gear. Mistakes will be made - it's inevitable that someone will eventually err while providing medical care, but the result is going to be that some of our doctors and nurses become patients themselves or that they mistakenly send people home who should be admitted. HuffPost had an article last week in which nurses were saying "we're not prepared for this, we don't know what the best practices are for preventing contamination." Your average community hospital in the US is not equipped to deal with patients who essentially high level bio-hazards. The local media in my area contacted one of the hospitals and ran a story with the headline "Area Hospitals Prepared for Ebola" when in reality, the actual article said that their "preparation" is to immediately isolate anyone suspected of the disease in an area of the ER, contact the CDC and wait for someone to transfer that patient elsewhere. Um, that's a dubious plan for a single patient that assumes CDC (with their shrinking budget, thanks to Congress) is available. That's not a plan for a widespread outbreak.

[Juliajms]

Here is some of the worst news I've seen about Ebola given the number of people infected already.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/08/sex-in-a-time-of-ebola/

[ellabelle]

That's a pretty compelling argument for celibacy.

[DRW50]

What makes the whole thing worse is so many people are making this political and focusing on winding people up rather than actually caring about prevention or treatment.

Deep down I think some people are thrilled about this, as some people were thrilled about AIDS years ago.

[ellabelle]

Second possible Ebola case in Dallas:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/second-texas-ebola-frisco-patient_n_5954454.html

Hopefully it's a false alarm and this person is ill for some other reason.

More on the Spanish nurse's assistant, and it's not good:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/08/ebola-in-europe-what-went-wrong.html

[DramatistDreamer]

A lot of so called First World organizations were overly confident, if not downright smug about their then untested capabilities. It just makes me wonder how many hospitals and staffs are trained and equipped to take on not just Ebola but any serious viral disease.

In the article I read this morning, many Spanish medical unions were protesting because they claim they are under-resourced and inadequately trained to deal with Ebola. Now the hospitals are blaming budget cuts due to euro prescribed austerity measures for the shortfall in resources.

Not good indeed.

[Juliajms]

Political how? Thrilled to what end? AIDS was spread primary through sex, Ebola isn't. Although that article I posted makes me worry that sex could start a new outbreak, just when we think we have it beat.

Overall, I'm about 5 miles away from an Ebola patient right now and I'm not even a little worried about it.

[DRW50]

People who keep saying ebola is a plot by the government or that Obama and others in power know all and won't tell us (I've seen Rand Paul and others implying/saying some of this).

Thrilled in that it's probably a disease some people can use as a political weapon or think that only the unworthy get.

[DRW50]

Austerity is always a terrible idea. It's wreaked havoc in Europe and has helped lead to a big comeback of fascism and racism and anti-Semitism.

The sad thing is that's what so many people want for America, what the media pushes, etc. And after November we may be even closer to getting a more extreme version of it.

[Juliajms]

So true. Even though I hate to see people suffering, I think it's best the world has been tested by a disease that isn't airborne.

I remember American nurses coming out and saying that they didn't feel prepared to take on Ebola her in the US either. I can't remember where I read it though. It just struck me because certain elements in the medical establishment seemed overly confident to me on that front. I honestly don't think we are going to have an epidemic here, but I also think it's foolish for those in charge to be overconfident.

[DRW50]

I think some in charge probably don't want anyone to panic, which may also seem like overconfidence, but some probably are genuinely overconfident.