Ebola Outbreak Kills 13 In Uganda

The BBC reports that an outbreak of the Ebola virus has killed 13 in Uganda, and infected seven more. "The health ministry says emergency measures are in place to deal with the outbreak, which began in late June but has only just been confirmed as Ebola. The cases have been reported in Kibaale district, about 170km (100 miles) to the west of the capital Kampala. ... Ebola is one of the most virulent diseases in the world. It is spread by close personal contact, and kills up to 90% of those who become infected. There is no vaccine for the virus. Symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, headache, vomiting and impaired kidneys. The first victim of this outbreak was a pregnant woman."

Comments

Madagascar?

[ragefan]

Is Madagascar shut down yet?

Re:Madagascar?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL... I vaguely remember this reference. It's a game where you are a virus, but you can never take over madagascar,

Re:Madagascar?

[Mashiki]

The game is pandemic/pandemic2. Just google it. You can, the trick is to use low visibility and infect everywhere. Then unleash unholy hell.

Re:Madagascar?

[wickedskaman]

No you didn't. :)

Re:Madagascar?

[Anonymous Coward]

hasa diga eebowai !

Re:Madagascar?

[IonOtter]

Your sig is disturbingly appropriate for your comment.

Re:Madagascar?

[Thundaaa Struk]

When will people in Uganda learn that to prevent the spreading of Ebola you need to sneeze into your elbow.

Proximity

[SuperKendall]

Considering the close proximity between this story and the Monkey Brains story just after, I think I may have to stay away from Slashdot for a few days...

Thank God I bought that anti-virus HDMI cable or I'd really be sweating.

Vaccine

[casings]

I guess the researcher for the article hasn't read this story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16011748

Re:Vaccine

[MrQuacker]

80% survival for mice.

TFA: He said the next step is to try the vaccine on a strain of Ebola that is closer to the one that infects humans.

Re:Vaccine

[sjames]

I guess that's why TFA doesn't mention any dead mice :-)

Re:Vaccine

[Prune]

Recent medical history is littered with the carcases of treatments which were demonstrated in mice and then failed to translate to human physiology, and any honest researcher will admit as much. It's a great way to get grant money, however.

Re:Vaccine

[Nyder]

I guess the researcher for the article hasn't read this story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16011748

See? That link above is a worthy story for slashdot. It has science.

The story about the outbreak? No FUCKING SCIENCE. or nerds

or vagina

Re:Vaccine

[Anonymous Coward]

You call this a failure? Think of all the mice who will benefit from this.

Re:Vaccine

[Jmc23]

There's actually quite a few vaccines, some tested on humans. My brother is an immunologist working with ebola.

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[DesScorp]

I don't come to slashdot for news I can get everywhere else.

This has nothing to do with tech nor nerds.

Soulskill, you need to rethink the job you are doing here, because you fucked up.

Uh, there's definitely a big science angle to disease outbreaks. So they problem is...?

Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Shag]

If they've only got 20 people affected so far, it sounds fairly small compared to the last couple outbreaks. Hope they can establish good controls to keep it from spreading.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Doubting Sapien]

Which recent outbreaks are you referring to? Under the formal definition of an epidemic, even 20 cases is significant when considering the localization of the event. With something as virulent as Ebola, "minor" is not the most appropriate characterization under most circumstances. The upside, (if any can be considered as such) is that historic outbreaks of hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola burn so intensely and so quickly they usually burn themselves out even without much public health efforts. (ie. victims succumb quickly and expire before they can be effective in spreading it to others.) Granted, most past events have not been in urban areas with a high population density. In a developed country with modern transportation infrastructure to facilitate movement of (potentially infected) travelers, the result could be catastrophic without a strong effective response from public health services.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Lurker2288]

But a developed country also has decent hospital infrastructure in place, which means that once you know you have something nasty (and people will figure it out when patients come in bleeding from their eyes) they'll institute proper infection control protocols. The reason there was such explosive transmission in many of the early African outbreaks is that you had nurses reusing hypodermic syringes between patients because they didn't have clean ones. So I'm not really sure a first world country (or even a more developed third world country, really) has too much to worry about a catastrophe.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Genda]

You don't understand what a firestorm an outbreak of ebola is capable of. Yes it has a short incubation period and time of death from first contact can be as little as several days depending on the health of the patient (this is actually good, because as has been said, it dramatically reduces the likelihood of large scale spread), but if an infected person were to get on a plane that touched down let's say in any major European city, then went either to the U.S. with a stop in the U.K. or to let's say Japan with a stop in India, the chance for an amazing number of people to become infected before the disease could be contained would be almost certain. With infected people changing flights, and traveling to other transportation hubs, where the disease could be passed on several times, you could have tens of millions of people infected in days. All the major cities of the world would have cases, and global transportation would collapse.

The ebola we currently know will never kill billions, but it could cripple the world and cause untold horror. The one other major concern is that a large enough outbreak of ebola, could cause a significant number of mutations in the virus, with a virus that is airborne or a virus that has a longer incubation period, becoming a serious game changer. Such a virus would be much easier to spread and much harder to control. A slow ebola could kill billions.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[History's Coming To]

Which is why Marburg is the one to worry about, not quite as lethal but a longer incubation period if I recall.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Ebola is not airborne, I think you're seriously overestimating the possible transmission rate. Transmission requires *close* bodily contact. That means touching fluids. I don't know about your sex life, but not that many people are in contact with my bodily fluids (captcha: turgid) in any given week (and almost never anyone I'm on a plane with). Anyone symptomatic wouldn't be getting on a plane, so they wouldn't even be bleeding yet to spread it.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Schz]

On top of that--and much more frightening--Marburg has a higher rate of successful transmission. Given a choice between the two, the individual would go for Marburg, but the epidemiologist would sure as hell go for Ebola. Furthermore, we don't know what Ebola would do if it got into an airline or a major city. Viruses have a nasty, nasty habit of changing their behavior if they change their setting. Influenza in a sparse population is an annoyance, but in a dense one, it can be a disaster. We just don't know what Ebola in a dense population is yet. Long story short--this is a very effective, poorly understood virus. Both news for nerds (science nerds, at least) and stuff that matters.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Lurker2288]

Can you provide some evidence to support your statement that ebola as we know it could "cripple the world?" Not arguing with you, I just didn't think that it was transmissible enough to cause a problem the way, say, a flu virus with high lethality would be. As case in point (and I know this is poor quality evidence, but take it with as much salt as you need) in 'The Hot Zone' Preston describes someone infected with Marburg on a commercial flight who is massively contagious--shedding virus in blood and vomit. And yet I don't recall anyone on the flight becoming infected.

As I said though, weak evidence on my part, and if you could help me become better informed here I'd appreciate it.

Re:Sounds like a minor outbreak

[Shag]

Which recent outbreaks are you referring to? Under the formal definition of an epidemic, even 20 cases is significant when considering the localization of the event.

Oh, sorry - I was thinking of the Ugandan experience with big outbreaks specifically - the 2000 one in the north of the country that infected more people than any other Ebola outbreak before or since (knock on wood), and the 2007 one in Bundibugyo.

Re:Travel Bureau

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I guess. I mean I try but I guess my heart's just not in it ever since Taco left us.

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[AmazingRuss]

You won't be saying that when you're bleeding out of all your orifices.

The irony with Ebola

[Grayhand]

People wonder why Ebola never breaks out. The thing that makes it scary is the very thing that causes the burnout. Ebola hits fast and hard. You get sick in a matter of hours, a couple of days, instead of weeks. It also kills fast leaving a narrow window for transmission. It also isn't airborne making it harder than most think to transmit. Avoid touching fluids and you are probably safe. It's why Reston Marburg was so scary because it was airborne. Add in a longer incubation and period when it's communicable and you have a seriously scary disease. FYI Reston Marburg isn't fatal to humans, another lucky break. The point is we came that close so the odds of Ebola one day mutating and breaking out are extremely high. It's why it's so closely monitored. Ebola has the same potential as the Black Plague.

Re:The irony with Ebola

[the biologist]

If that happens, then it will also kill all but the most isolated of tribesman in the deeps of the Congo, Amazon, New Guinea, and Australian outback.

If you hadn't noticed, white people genetics has a tendency to get around.

Re:The irony with Ebola

[Miamicanes]

The outbreak in Reston wasn't Marburg... it was Ebola. "Reston ebolavirus", to be exact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_Reston

Re:The irony with Ebola

[epyT-R]

yeah, great.. cultural marxism, people.... this guy's a prime example of the result.

Re:The irony with Ebola

[Prune]

It would be much better to try to create an airborne strain of rabies. It has a sufficiently long incubation period, and is also essentially 100% fatal without early treatment, which is much better performance than Ebola. Probably some kind of influenza/rabies hybrid is the best option.

Re:The irony with Ebola

[Ostracus]

All the more reason to move everything online were the only virus one has to worry about is computer.

Re:The irony with Ebola

[moonbender]

We've got vaccines for rabies...

Re:The irony with Ebola

[Prune]

You should learn to think before letting your itchy Reply-clicking finger get the better of you. 1) Airborne rabies with influenza-like transmissibility would spread before you can manufacture and distribute enough vaccine to immunize all but a small fraction of the population. 2) A rabies-influenza hybrid would have the flu's core capability of very quickly changing its surface antigens, which makes the flu vaccines so hit and miss--the virus has the upper hand in this arms race--and those are things actively being sought out every flu season, whereas no one is actively working on airborne rabies vaccine--and once that hits, it will be too late to start work on it. 3) Once unvaccinated individuals are infected, the rabies post-exposure prophylaxis treatment has to be initiated immediately, and is sufficiently resource intensive that no more than a small fraction of the population can be simultaneously undergoing it.

"Ugandan government suppressed news until now"

[SuperBanana]

which began in late June but has only just been confirmed as Ebola

Operative words being "just confirmed" - I'm sure doctors and researchers have known since July 1st that it was Ebola.

The problem is that the governments in these countries are terrified of not the threat of Ebola spreading, but of damage to commerce, particularly tourism - and will coerce researchers and doctors to not discuss or reveal outbreaks.

Re:"Ugandan government suppressed news until now"

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not the only ones. An Ebola scarea, just before the Olympics, could cost billions in lost travel business.

Re:"Ugandan government suppressed news until now"

[Gavagai80]

Actually, tourism is a huge industry in Uganda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Uganda

No word...

[Chris Mattern]

...on whether they did in fact hate Weird Al's ringtone...

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[bhagwad]

Given the fact that Ebola is:

a) Highly contagious
b) 70-90% fatal

It's scary enough to be on Slashdot.

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way, It costs around $60000 a month alone to host slashdot and pay for bandwidth. Geeknet
who owns slashdot does not run out of someones appartment, its a large operations with salaries, office space,
reporting obligations. That money needs to be recouped and the way Geeknet does it is not primarily through
banner ads but through paid for articles like this one.

I would think the Geeknet customer here is either the CDC or a pharma group interested in stoking pandemic
fears.

Incidentally in Cambodia right now there is a mystery illness going around with now 100+ cases of children
coming down the disease. Symptoms include narcolepsy. The illnesses started cropping up a week or so
after the children were vaccinated. This is something you will not find on slashdot.

oh that's nice

[slashmydots]

Good thing I have all those symptoms for the last 2 days, lol. Luckily I'm in Wisconsin and everyone in the chain of people who caught it is still alive and has recovered and zinc seemed to have fended it off pretty well, but still :-P

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[Nyder]

I don't come to slashdot for news I can get everywhere else.

This has nothing to do with tech nor nerds.

Soulskill, you need to rethink the job you are doing here, because you fucked up.

Uh, there's definitely a big science angle to disease outbreaks. So they problem is...?

Did you read the article? I did, it mentions nothing about science at all. Just normal shit. Outbreak, don't know why, people died, have to help, hopefully the help doesn't get it.

I don't care if I get modded Troll, my rep is so good here it doesn't hurt me. But it doesn't change the fact that this post really doesn't belong here.

Now if it talked about a new breakthru to help the outbreak, cool. But it doesn't.

It doesn't even talk about any science.

So again, what is it doing here?

Troll fever

[TiggertheMad]

You won't be saying that when you're bleeding out of all your orifices.

For someone to catch the disease, you are required to come into contact with other people. So unless you can catch it off a hot pockets wrapper, most of /. is safe for the time being.

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[Johann Lau]

A lot of things are "scary". Does that mean they warrant a slashdot article?

Re:familily member?

[tokul]

He left you 50M Zimbabwean dollars.

nature's way of saying

[KingBenny]

you really need to fix that overpopulation. The thing is so horrible, it's the closest thing in reality to an actual apocalyptic zombie outbreak. Close personal contact, large crowded cities. I hardly dare think about it

Re:nature's way of saying

[RoLi]

you really need to fix that overpopulation.

Don't worry, as soon as the European and American aid dries up (currently about half of all sub-saharan Africans are dependent on food aid) Africa will revert back to the pre-colonial times. As the economic crisis will harden in the next years, this is just a matter of time.

And as we have all learned in school, colonialism was a really bad thing, therefore the coming decolonialization (not what we saw in the 1960's, but the real thing that will destroy any remnant of evil western civilization in these lands) will be a Good Thing.

The great irony is that all the phony starvation (Ethiopia doubled it's population during the "famine" in the 1980s - compare that to a real famine for example the Irish potato famine in the 19th century where the population was cut in half) was televized all over the world, but the real thing probably won't - because it's no longer profitable to collect cash for a famine in an economic depression.

Re:nature's way of saying

[KingBenny]

in the long run it will be a good thing, but there's more to africa since the chinese are atm making use of it wherever they can it won't be really de-colonized. What's sure is that the colonial powers of old are on the downslope of the curve atm. The boost they got after having to rebuild after WW2 is over, there's gonna be retracement to a certain level , thing is people in charge have these golden years they take as 'the norm' so to them this is already a disastrous time. I think it's gonna get much worse and maybe old europe and maybe even uncle sams white picket house will be the next colony. Irony? Fate? history repeating ? what goes up must come down and more cliché like that. It's mostly the unwill to change and the blind clinging to the past, forcing today to be like what 'they' knew that gives most trouble. Maybe it would be best to take all politicians in charge now and forbid them and their offspring and kin to have any official position for at leat ten years so people born with a mindset in this day and age could have a go at it

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[isorox]

A lot of things are "scary". Does that mean they warrant a slashdot article?

Tom Clancy wrote about a plane crashing into a major building in Washington. Later 9/11 happend

(Sadly, In Clancy's versions, it was the politicians died, rather than the innocent).

The next book, he wrote about Ebola becoming weaponized. Something to keep an eye on. Next Russia will be joining NATO.

Re:wtf is this article doing here?

[Johann Lau]

Hey, I didn't say doomsday ain't coming. I'm just asking, who cares? :D

Re:Pussies

[Johann Lau]

I wasn't joking though, I was totally trying to call the people on the site I read since 2000 pussies. They are pussies, while I am just here to mock them, and of course to impress the ladies by seeming manly in comparison.

^_^

Cure???

[Dabido]

Wonder if they can do something similar to rabies, where they induced a coma and drip feed anti-virus drugs into the infected person. Then wait and hope the person and the anti-viral drugs have enough strength to kill off the virus.

Re:Cure???

[airdweller]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/ff_rabies/all/