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US Army To Transport American Ebola Victim To Atlanta Hospital From Liberia
acidradio (659704) writes American air charter specialist Phoenix Air has been contracted by the U.S. Army to haul an American physician afflicted with Ebola from Liberia to the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. This will be the first 'purposeful' transport of an Ebola victim to the U.S. The patient will be flown in a special Gulfstream III (formerly owned by the Danish Air Force) outfitted for very specialized medical transports such as this. I dunno. I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
theodp (442580) writes with related news In response to the Ebola outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Interim Guidance about Ebola Virus Infection for Airline Flight Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel. "Ebola virus is transmitted by close contact with a person who has symptoms of Ebola," the CDC explains. "Close contact is defined as having cared for or lived with a person with Ebola or having a high likelihood of direct contact with blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Examples of close contact include kissing or embracing, sharing eating or drinking utensils, close conversation (3 feet), physical examination, and any other direct physical contact between people. Close contact does not include walking by a person or briefly sitting across a room from a person."
The Zombie Apocalypse is nearly upon us! Run ! RUNNNNNN!
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
CNN had an article on this shortly before it popped up here. In their article, they said that an Ebola vaccine is well underway, with trials expected to begin in humans soon. It's apparently been proven effective in monkeys already. I was a little concerned before I read that, but if they've got a working vaccine, it's really not a big deal.
The Centers for Disease Control is in Atlanta.
It's nice to see reason and logic flying out the window with most of these early posts, by the way. I think I'll invest in pitchfork futures, pronto!
#DeleteChrome
Just for fun, the folks at the CDC should combine Ebola with the rabies virus. This zombie apocalypse isn't going to start itself!
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
Ebola is hardly the only scary pathogen handled by the CDC. In fact I believe the CDC doesn't even consider this among the most dangerous of pathogens because of the relative difficulty in transmission which requires direct contact and it evolves relatively slowly apparently. They know very well how to handle this. The main concern is that they actually follow proper procedures. If they do that then there is little to worry about.
If you really want to study ebola to find a cure this is probably a very good idea provided they exercise appropriate caution. You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
In all likelihood, nothing. The CDC handles copies of pretty much every known pathogen on the planet. It is the premier pathogen research institution on the planet. They've already seen ebola. The only thing novel about this is that they are bringing in a live patient with the disease to a top tier hospital so they can bring the best tools to bear on researching the disease and hopefully treating this guy.
Is the TSA agent going to give the Ebola patient a pat-down? After all, he might have a bomb in his underwear.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Emory University's Campus touches the CDC, so much so you can look out of some of the windows in Emory and see into the offices at the CDC. They also work together professionally. Essentially this person is being transferred to the CDC.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Note that those are cases in an area where part of the funeral rites include (I believe) washing the body of the deceased by hand.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If you could catch Ebola by touching the sweat somebody left behind as they passed through a room, it would have spread a lot farther than it has. I'm pretty sure they'll be testing everybody that comes into contact with this guy for the virus, and even if the tests miss it, the symptoms are not subtle, it being a hemorrhagic fever and all...
Not every virus acts like the flu or cold viruses. Ebola isn't particularly virulent, even if it is pretty nasty if you come down with it. Being able to perform tests on a live patient in a state-of-the-art facility (as opposed to a 3rd-world heap whose "hospitals" are about as sanitary as a mid-grade highway rest stop) is invaluable in researching treatments. Just like the movies, the CDC has on-site facilities specifically designed to treat people with scary diseases we don't want in the population at large; this seems like an excellent use for them.
The various strains of the flu which become pandemics don't start off as particularly communicable either. They usually develop in other animals (e.g. birds or pigs) and mutate into a form which can infect humans. Even then their outbreak is usually limited to farmers and people who work closely with animals because, like current Ebola strains, they can only be transmitted via direct contact.
They become a pandemic when they mutate into a form which can be transmitted via the air. Not saying this will happen with Ebola. Just saying that just because it's not particularly communicable now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. Ebola is so deadly (50%-90% mortality rate, c.f. 10%-20% for the Spanish Flu) that it inhibits its own spread - killing its victims before they have a chance to mingle with other people and spread the disease. That's also why they haven't transported a patient out of Africa yet - they tend to die before the red tape is cleared. Given the deadly nature of the disease I think it's a good idea to be able to study a case in a modern hospital facility rather than some rural village in Africa. They just need to be super careful handling the case, which it sounds like they are.
There's also something to be said for backing up the doctors who are working on this outbreak with the best possible care we can provide them should they become infected. These folks are casualties on the front lines of an inter-species war. Writing them off and treating them as pariahs if they become infected doesn't exactly bolster their confidence nor encourage other doctors to try to help contain similar outbreaks. Modern epidemiology has become a victim of its own success. People point to fizzled outbreaks like MERS, SARS, the Bird Flu, and criticize our disease control agencies of overreacting because those diseases didn't really spread that far, when the reason those diseases didn't spread that far was likely in large part due to the quick actions of those agencies. We need to be backing these people up. They need to know that should they become casualties, the world is going to provide them with the best possible care to help them recover, not treat them like lepers.
Um, there are massive differences between Atlanta and Liberia.
Do you believe the following are regular occurrences in Atlanta?
1) Family of someone who died of a known infectious disease choose to hand-wash the corpse anyway, with full knowledge of the cause of death. (Note: Many Africans apparently don't believe the disease exists.)
2) Local residents protest the hospital because they believe that the "story" about the infections disease is a coverup for ritual cannibalism. http://www.reuters.com/article...
3) Local residents break in to the isolation ward to remove an infected family member from the hospital
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Yup, CDC knows how to handle this sort of shit.
Yes they do. Nobody's perfect but I trust the CDC to handle this. I've met people that work there. I'm married to a physician that deals with the CDC from time to time and she trusts them. They are very good at their job.
It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
And that is relevant in what way here? Seriously. Explain to me how some leftover vials of a pathogen from decades ago has any relevance to this case beside pointing out the already obvious fact that there is a tiny but non-zero chance someone might do something stupid. That failure mode has precisely zero bearing on this issue. People are not perfect, news at 11.
Cut out the sissy NIMBY scaremongering. There is really, truly nothing to worry about here. It's not funny and it scares people who don't know any better.
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Probably yes there is a research interest. Otherwise there would be no reason to choose Atlanta (home of the CDC) of all possible treatment locations. There are plenty of places for treatment but only one place where the experts at the CDC can look at things up close. It's a lot harder to bring the CDC to the patient than the other way around.
There's a reason animals (and humans) are paranoid about shit we don't understand. From a survival standpoint, it's an advantageous attitude to have. And right now, I'm pretty fucking paranoid about being anywhere near people with Ebola!
Then you need to educate yourself because ebola is NOT even in the top 20 pathogens you should be worried about. Infectious disease doctors worry about diseases like Vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus which is an example of a much more serious threat. You're worrying about a meteor strike when while living in Tornado Alley. Sure there is a tiny risk but it isn't what you should be concerned about. Ebola is scary but there are MUCH scarier and FAR more likely pathogens out there.
Ebola is hard to transmit, easy to contain, evolves slowly and is very unlikely to come anywhere near you in the near future.
Sierra Leone's only expert on Ebola died from Ebola a couple of days ago, despite being an expert and therefore following all the safety procedures to the best of his ability.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Sierra Leone's only expert on Ebola died from Ebola a couple of days ago, despite being an expert and therefore following all the safety procedures to the best of his ability.
I'm not going to bother confirming what you said but let's assume it is true. Do you have any idea what sort of conditions this person was working under? If it is anything like much of West Africa then you've probably been in highway rest stops that are cleaner than some of the hospitals. Per capita GDP in Sierra Leone is under $1000/year so I'm pretty sure any doctors working there are working without adequate supplies which equals unsafe working conditions. The CDC on the other hand has access to literally every medical technology known to man and the money to utilize them.
So what exactly is your point? That a doctor, heroically working to save people, died due to a lack of adequate medical supplies to do his job properly? Yeah, happens all the time in places like that. It's a tragedy but nothing new or shocking.
The incubation period, or the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days. The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms. They are not contagious during the incubation period.
It's not like there is some magical cure awaiting them upon arrival at Emory, there is no cure for Ebola. About the best they can hope for is palliative care, so why not just send a team to West Africa to do the same.
Actually there ARE some experimental treatments and antivirals, both general and specific to Ebola, being worked on. At Emory, in particular. (It's their business.)
In fact, according to previous reports, THIS GUY was working on them. And he had ONE dose of one of them WITH him.
Unfortunately, when he and a colleague both started showing symptoms, THIS GUY gave the ONE DOSE to the OTHER GUY.
Has he had other treatments already that might have made him more resistant than J. Random Villager? Haven't heard yet, but it sure wouldn't surprise me.
Bring this partiular guy back to the US, to the CDC facilities, shove him in a best-of-its-class isolab, and give him the best supportive care available (including more experimental stuff)? This might make sense, big time, despite the risks in transit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The ebola virus, so far, are not airborne, but it does spread via liquid flow
The ebola virus that CDC and all other research labs study are stored inside sealed containers which are stored inside sealed rooms which are inside sealed buildings, and every single time they are done with their research ***EVERYTHING*** goes into the incinerator, ***EVERY SINGLE THING***, in order to make sure that no virus, not even one , will get the chance to escape
But bringing in the patients striken with ebola will mean importing a human being with all the body fluids that are infected with that virus --- and the bodily fluid, from tears to saliva to sweat to blood to excrement are full of the virus
Unless they seal the patient inside a sealed container and then move that seal container inside the military transport plane, and then moved it out when the plane reached the destination, that military transport plane itself will, one way or another, be left with traces of bodily fluid from the ebola patients
Now, I am not scare mongering, but in the medical world there is a thing called "vector" --- which means, the way the disease spread --- and those traces of bodily fluids inside the big military transport plane may become a vector for spreading that disease
Furthermore, when the patient arrives inside the States, that patient will gonna discharge his/her bodily fluid (pee, sweat, saliva, blood, shit) and how are all those bodily fluid gonna be taken care of ?
Unless that hospital has a specialized toilet where all the thing flushed from that toilet goes through an incinerator / or some kind of total disinfection system before that fluid was discharged out into the sewage system --- which will flow down, eventually, into rivers --- how can anyone be sure that none of the ebola virus is going to escape from the hospital ?
It is not about NIMBY --- it is just common sense