Ebola in the United States (its habbeding)

[Tagora]

[Leshma]

Actually wiping out every animal on planet earth would be a horrible trait for any virus because the virus would die by a lack of hosts.

The thing that needs to be understood is that death and other unpleasant symptoms caused by viruses are usually strategies to transit from one host to another, or just side-effects of one of these strategies. For instance, treating ebola patients requires extreme care precisely because ebola "targets" people taking care of the sick by transmitting through contact and fluids. There are much "better" viruses around that infect people and transmit to other people without killing them, which is a much better way to survive for the virus. Deadly viruses tend to disappear both because dead people do not spread the virus and the human potential hosts avoid the virus much more fiercely, fighting it with quarantine and medicine.

You sound like creationist (everything is finely tuned and calculated, everything has a purpose blah blah). Viruses aren't intelligent. What's the point of discussing their means of survival? You can't apply strategies to viruses, that is nonsense. It's a mechanism that evolved in a certain way, under certain circumstances and which gives an impression that virus wants to stay alive. But it doesn't, it's not intelligent to have such desire. It's like advanced computer program, nothing more.

[Kafein]

You sound like creationist (everything is finely tuned and calculated, everything has a purpose blah blah). Viruses aren't intelligent. What's the point of discussing their means of survival? You can't apply strategies to viruses, that is nonsense. It's a mechanism that evolved in a certain way, under certain circumstances and which gives an impression that virus wants to stay alive. But it doesn't, it's not intelligent to have such desire. It's like advanced computer program, nothing more.

Well of course, when I use the word "strategy" I refer to an emergent behavior resulting from mutations, which are random. What I was mainly interested in is to say that viruses are not an intelligent being aimed at killing people. But rather that viruses survive when they transmit themselves, hence traits that make transmission easier become dominant in viruses, rather than traits that make viruses more deadly.

In that sense, a strategy is only the result of a search process. That process can be what most people would describe as human intelligence, but it can be any process.

[Thomek]

Read the article from LA times. "Ebola not Airborne" is not necessarily true. Ebola caused coughing and sneezing in monkeys, and it spread between fence separated cages..

It may survive in droplets from sneezing and coughing.

My guess is that it is in fact more contagious than what is being generally told. It can explain why so many healthcare workers are catching it for example. Like this norwegian doctor.. I bet she was extremely cautious, still down with Ebola.

In the LA times article, the Ebola researchers tell straight that they simply don't know how contagious it is.

I don't think this is doomsday, but I don't see this ending very soon either. Remember the trend has to turn from exponentially rising numbers of infected (now) to decreasing numbers. It's a big ship to turn, especially if it hits other areas of the globe densely populated with bad hygiene, medical care and education. (India..)

[Kafein]

I don't think this is doomsday, but I don't see this ending very soon either. Remember the trend has to turn from exponentially rising numbers of infected (now) to decreasing numbers. It's a big ship to turn, especially if it hits other areas of the globe densely populated with bad hygiene, medical care and education. (India..)

This. Us living in the western world have more or less nothing to worry about compared to regions such as India, China and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The only factor of risk here is that we have more chances to have a few people catching the virus due to the fact that the huge majority of foreign doctors flying to help in Africa come from western countries.

[lombardsoup]

This. Us living in the western world have more or less nothing to worry about compared to regions such as India, China and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The only factor of risk here is that we have more chances to have a few people catching the virus due to the fact that the huge majority of foreign doctors flying to help in Africa come from western countries.

Or rather, western nations wouldn't have anything to worry about if immigration to and from them was heavily regulated.  What they have now is essentially an open borders policy.

[Life]

the dude that had ebola in texas is dead. rip in peace.

[Leshma]

My guess is that it is in fact more contagious than what is being generally told. It can explain why so many healthcare workers are catching it for example. Like this norwegian doctor.. I bet she was extremely cautious, still down with Ebola.

To understand how this whole thing started and how Ebola spread to humans you need to search for "bush-meat" images (or rather not if you like animals). This is by far the largest Ebola outbreak and also the least deadly Ebola outbreak in history. That's because previous outbreaks were localized in small villages which were on the brink of civilization without means to spread easily. This time first infected person was a boy who was living near town.

Doctors don't even know which animal acts as "container" for Ebola. They presume it's the fruit bat. Ebola is believe to origin from the caves near the shores of Zambezi, great river of life. Bats infected primates (great apes), they infected humans. Also its believed in some cases bats directly infected humans. Boy or first human carrier, supposedly ate bat stew, popular dish in Africa. They are so fucking poor and lacks food so bad that they eat everything with a pulse. Even those who have food eat that shit as part of their tradition. That is why Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers happen in Africa.

Those villages are in pretty bad shape as you can imagine and Ebola wiped them out, that is why it's believed Ebola's death rate is 90%. Right now we know that's not the case and that every other person survive the infection. That is because health and living conditions are better in slums. But those are still slums and worse than anything you can find in western world. In Nigeria, which is pretty crowded place and where conditions of life are poor there were just 2 deaths so far. That's because Nigeria is wealthiest nation in that part of Africa. Which leads us to conclusion:

EBOLA CAN'T SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE IN DEVELOPED PARTS OF THE WORLD WHERE HYGIENE IS MUCH BETTER THAN IN AFRICAN CITIES!

Also death rate won't be nowhere near 50%. Elderly and chronically ill will probably die from it but many healthy people will survive.

Variola was and still is a boss. Ebola is nowhere near it.

[lombardsoup]

Reading reports of a number two, is this legit?

[Leshma]

In USA? There are couple cases, just one death. He wasn't American.

[Clockworkkiller]

Damnit Africa! First you give us AIDs and now this?

[Bittersteel]

Damnit Africa! First you give us AIDs and now this?

Time for 'America to step in and spread some freedom'

(click to show/hide)

aka removing the continent from planet earth

[Dooz]

In USA? There are couple cases, just one death. He wasn't American.

at some point, there were a couple cases with just one death in africa

[Chosen1]

mfw new ebola case in frisco, the suburb I live in

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/26737893/frisco-sick-patient-shows-signs-of-ebola

[Umbra]

http://time.com/3482193/ebola-cases-8000/