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Merged So Ebola's back......

Auto-correct hard at work, Skeptic. Have no idea why it spit out SK though.
 
And.... Nigeria joins the fray
The confirmed 2nd case is a doctor who had helped treat [PS], the Liberian-American man who died 25 Jul 2014 days after arriving in Nigeria amid the unprecedented outbreak in West Africa. "3 others who participated in that treatment who are currently symptomatic have had their samples taken and hopefully by the end of today [4 Aug 2014] we should have the results of their own tests," Chukwu said. ...

[Now the fat is really in the fire. Lagos is Africa's biggest city, with 21 million people, and one of the world's most crowded, with poor healthcare infrastructure.

A businessman relative informs me that he has seen many Nigerian market women at Beijing airport who spend their lives flying from Lagos via Abu Dhabi to buy cheap goods in China and take them back home to sell. Enterprising Nigerian traders travel to every world market. - Mod.JW]
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Now all we need is for Randall Flagg to show up in Africa....
 
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That risk of spread article is great:
At this point in the epidemic we are seeing the usual bifurcation of reaction among the general public, sciency bloggers, and the press. On one had there is growing panic, people either being very scared, for real, or people or press outlets shopping fear on the market because it sells. On the other hand there is the stern corrective statement that all your fears are invalid, Ebola isn’t going to get out of hand, isn’t going to get to the US, there is nothing to worry about.

At the same time there is a parallel and equally bifurcated rhetoric about the bigger picture, about dealing with Ebola as a public health problem. On one hand you have people asking for a vaccine, or some sort of cure, to address this thus far orphaned disease, because they are worried about it. On the other hand you have people noting that Malaria kills millions a year, and most years, Ebola kills no one, and when there is an outbreak, it only kills dozens or hundreds, except this last time which is still only many hundreds dead and the very low three figures sickened.

Every one of the above mentioned concerns is valid and invalid at the same time, and every one of the reactions to the current Ebola crisis is both correct and incorrect at the same time.
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Two further bits of news; British Airways has suspended all flights to/from Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of the month due to public health concerns over the Ebola outbreak and there are now eight additional confirmed cases in Lagos, with more people in quarantine.
Additionally Liberia and Sierra Leone are deploying troops to support health workers and guard clinics, specifically to prevent relatives of the dead taking bodies for traditional burial, a significant factor in transmission of the disease.
The suspected case in New York has not been confirmed
 
unconvential transmission

Cuddles, there have been cases where the spreading mechanism is not well understood:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121115/srep00811/full/srep00811.html
Cuddles said:
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Ebola is a nasty disease, but it's uncommon and doesn't spread easily. Avoiding contact with infected people's bodily fluids is basically all that is required to avoid catching it. The current outbreak is a problem largely because of the conditions in the area - poor, little medical care, virtually no real borders, and so on..
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Complicating matters is the fact that some traditional African burial rituals involve handling and touching the body. The bodies of people who have died from ebola are even more infectious than when they were alive, putting family members at risk. During some of these rites, family members will wash the body and put their hands on the body during the procession. I know it's their religious beliefs, but this has to stop.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
Complicating matters is the fact that some traditional African burial rituals involve handling and touching the body. The bodies of people who have died from ebola are even more infectious than when they were alive, putting family members at risk. During some of these rites, family members will wash the body and put their hands on the body during the procession. I know it's their religious beliefs, but this has to stop.
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Exactly. Hence the troops being deployed in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Today the WHO has declared the Ebola outbreak an international health emergency.
 
Latest news.

  • Nigeria has declared a state of emergency.
  • Guinea has closed its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone.
  • Zambia has barred travellers from the effected countries from entering the country.
  • Oil companies are withdrawing staff from Nigeria and Liberia.
  • The two Americans being treated in Atlanta are apparently improving after serum treatment.
  • There's a suspected case in Canada (Brampton, Ontario) with a patient in isolation.
  • The death toll is 962, though not all these have been confirmed as yet.
 
Yeah the Y. pestis outbreak has been rumbling on for a while.

Meanwhile the believed death toll for the current Ebola epidemic has reached 1,016, including one person evacuated to Spain.
 
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