Dallas Ebola patient vomited outside apartment on way to hospital

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I wanna see screenings at USA POEs. Now.

I agree. How hard would it be to check temperature ?

[Darnell 8,479]

not very.

the gear is cheap, also.

[Dakine10 5,452]

and I read somewhere recently that they have still found the active Virus for up to 81 days in the host after recovery. The crowd here who is saying, nothing to worry about it can't spread in the US are ill informed.

Time to hit the Panic button. Not yet. This is all new. I don't blame the ER for sending him home with those symptoms. It's the 1st case in the US. They see those symptoms 100's of times a month. Now maybe if someone was really on the ball, and understood where he just came from, they might have raised an alarm.

We need to start at least do some basic screening or some travel restrictions for non essential persons. Of course if this thing goes Viral ( pun intended) how do you think they will blame Bush ?

I've seen mention of this study. There is suspicion that this patient was immunocompromised. It's worth noting that many areas hit with Ebola outbreaks in the past also had to deal with relatively high rates of HIV infection,

82 days is not typical, given that the entire outbreak is considered contained after 42 days with no new cases. With any infection though, there is the potential for a reservoir to persist.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

So many men, so few with brains.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

So many men, so few with brains.

Many have brains. The problem is the brain remote control unit, often malfunctions when exposed to the right Stimuli, shutting down the brain and leaving the remote in charge

[aaydrian 479]

You take the "no proven cure" to mean that one will have the Ebola virus eternally once one has contracted it? That's not what it means. What it means is that there is no medication or therapy yet available to effectively treat Ebola patients. There's hope that the experimental drug that was used successfully on the first Ebola patients in Atlanta will provide a cure but it will take time for that to materialize. I fail to see where in this link there is any mention of a person that contracted Ebola never freeing the body of the virus.

I got that impression because the survival rate of Ebola victims is quite low (at most 30%) and the treatments for the disease is kinda up in the air at this point. Both factors spell almost certain death which means the virus stays in the body untill victims expire.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I got that impression because the survival rate of Ebola victims is quite low (at most 30%) and the treatments for the disease is kinda up in the air at this point. Both factors spell almost certain death which means the virus stays in the body untill victims expire.

and even after they die

[aaydrian 479]

Well that is essentially what happens. Not that the virus exits the body. Either the patient dies or they fight off the infection and there is no more virus.

What is meant by "no cure" is that there is no specific medicine or anti-viral drug that can be used to cure infection. Treatment is supportive to prevent things like hypovolemic shock and systemic organ failure. Most people who die from Ebola infection die from one of those two things.

Once people get past that stage, they will usually recover, although they will still be infectious for up to 21 days (current guidlines) and virus levels will continue to be detectable for several weeks, after which time most people will have measurable levels of Ebola antibodies, a level of immunity against reinfection, and no dectectable viral load.

So the point of the treatment is to keep the body in stable health long enough to build up the high levels of antibodies necessary to ward off Ebola until said patient is 100% Ebola free? I wonder how many Ebola victims have survived the disease, lived a measurable numbers of years after and what treatments they were afforded because so far there doesn't appear to be any.

[Dakine10 5,452]

I got that impression because the survival rate of Ebola victims is quite low (at most 30%) and the treatments for the disease is kinda up in the air at this point. Both factors spell almost certain death which means the virus stays in the body untill victims expire.

People who die of Ebola will have high viral loads. People who recover will eventually have none.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Dakine10

[aaydrian 479]

and even after they die

If there is an appropriate host and or environmental conditions.

[Dakine10 5,452]

So the point of the treatment is to keep the body in stable health long enough to build up the high levels of antibodies necessary to ward off Ebola until said patient is 100% Ebola free? I wonder how many Ebola victims have survived the disease, lived a measurable numbers of years after and what treatments they were afforded because so far there doesn't appear to be any.

Correct treatment is to stabilize the patient until they can recover, and then quarantine until they are not infectious.

As far as follow up, It doesn't help that the disease outbreaks have ocurred in some of the poorest parts of the world. No doubt this complicates medical care and follow up. Every outbreak so far has followed the trend of high mortality initially and then decreasing mortality rates as support and containment has improved. Much of the support is from outside agents such as WHO,MSF etc. They eventually pack up and leave. I don't think there is any specific ongoing therapy unless it's related to secondary conditions.

[LibCampFireClub 635]

The White House propaganda machine's message would be a lot more effective if they could just get the press to follow only in frog-march lock-step.

NURSES UNION CONTRADICTS CDC DIRECTOR'S CLAIM THAT HOSPITALS ARE WELL PREPARED FOR EBOLA

President Obama and the Centers for Disease Control are being quite careful to tell America that our hospitals are fully prepared for any possible outbreak of Ebola. But members of a nurses union disagree. They say US hospitals aren't prepared at all.

On September 30, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Thomas Frieden, assured the country that US hospitals are well prepared to face an Ebola crisis.

But nurses and a nurses union fully disagree with the CDC's chief. They feel US nurses are unprepared and untrained to handle an outbreak of Ebola, and the events in the Texas hospital that found the first US case of the virus might tend to buttress nurses who say they are unprepared.

Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan told the doctors at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas that he had been to a part of the world where the Ebola outbreak was at its worst, yet doctors let him go home anyway.

A representative for nurses says that this tends to show that even after recent training on how to handle Ebola, the Texas hospital was woefully unprepared to handle the virus.

"The Texas case is a perfect example. In addition to not being prepared, there was a flaw in diagnostics as well as communication," said Micker Samios, a triage nurse in the emergency department at Medstar Washington Hospital Center.

Samios says that inadequate training could make any Ebola outbreak worse.

"A lot of staff feel they aren't adequately trained," Samios said. To add to Samios' comments, a recent poll of 400 nurses in over 200 hospitals finds that many nurses agree that American medical technicians aren't prepared for Ebola.

The poll found that 60 percent feel that their hospitals are not ready for Ebola, with 80 percent saying they've gotten no extra communication on hospital preparations for the virus. Another 30 percent said that hospitals don't have enough protective gear for an outbreak.

This is all bad news to RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, a union for US nurses.

"If there are protocols in place, the nurses are not hearing them and the nurses are the ones who are exposed," DeMoro said. Karen Higgins, a nurse who works at Boston Medical Center, agrees. She says that hospitals are saying publicly that they are ready for any patients with Ebola, but they probably really aren't.

"People say they are ready, but then when you ask them what do you actually have in place, nobody is really answering that," said Higgins.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/03/Nurses-Union-Contradicts-CDC-Director-s-Claim-That-Hospitals-Are-Well-Prepared-for-Ebola

Edited October 6, 2014 by ExExpat

[LibCampFireClub 635]

Van Jones has some suggestions on how to handle this "Ebola thing."

Van Jones slammed for saying Dems should use Ebola as talking point

"We can't let the Republicans get away with some of the stuff they’re doing this week, just trying to bash Obama," Jones said. "Hey, you know, overnment is always your enemy until you need a friend. This Ebola thing is the best argument you can make for the kind of government that we believe in."

http://www.examiner.com/article/van-jones-slammed-for-saying-dems-should-use-ebola-as-talking-point

[Dakine10 5,452]

Van Jones has some suggestions on how to handle this "Ebola thing."

Lots of Ebola experts all of a sudden.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Dakine10

[UncleBeer 244]

Van Jones has some suggestions on how to handle this "Ebola thing."

Hmmmm; where've I heard this song before?