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NY Doctor Recently Back From West Africa Tests Positive For Ebola
An anonymous reader writes An emergency room doctor who recently returned to the city after treating Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the virus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. It's the first case in the city and the fourth in the nation. From the article: "The doctor, identified as Craig Spencer, 33, came back from treating Ebola patients in Guinea about 10 days ago, and developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue Wednesday night. The physician, employed at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, has been in isolation at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan since Thursday morning, the official said."
I saw the news about the poor doctor in NYC. Yikes, before I draw any conclusions, do we have any pieces by Bennett Haselton on the Ebola outbreak or diseases in general? I'd like to see what his insight is first. He's a frequent contributor.
Kent Brockman: Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Professor: Yes I would, Kent.
My friend works at Bellevue, my other friend took the 1 train (train the doctor took to go bowling last night while experiencing "sick symptoms") the same night he did and I take the 1 train every day to and friend work.
There are people who live and are stuck in Africa who have a millions times more the reason to be concerned than I am, I understand this.
What I don't agree with are the people who are using things like Malaria and HIV statistics to try and show how the media is playing up this issue.
Both are less serious and more controllable diseases with much bigger sample sizes. As/if more Ebola cases arise, the contractions will increase exponentially and they'll stop comparing this to "more serious diseases".
What I don't understand is why they are letting doctors who work on Ebola patients back into teh country without being screened?
There are people arguing to shut down all travel from West Africa, even if that's too much in your opinion, at least screen these doctors.
Customs: What was your reason for leaving the country?
Doctor: I was treating patients with Ebola.
Customs: Due to national security, we can not let you into the country until you've been tested and cleared.
Doctor: But I have plans to go bowling in Brooklyn in about week!
Customs: You're retarded.
Chances are, the conversation wouldn't happen like that and the doctor would be understanding of the situation.
So why aren't we just doing that to begin with?
Yeah, doctors are idiots! Why the heck did he even go to Guinea in the first place? What was he thinking!? What a moron! If I ever get ebola, I won't want any doctors like him treating me! They are idiots!
Join the IParty!
Or maybe the limited resources in the area of the outbreak make it impossible to be 100% perfect in your procedures and you do the best you can in a difficult situation.
The answer to stemming the tide of people taking Ebola elsewhere is to get it under control in Liberia/Sierra Leone/Ghana so there's no Ebola to take elsewhere. Until we do that the danger to other countries will continue regardless of what you do.
Another thing, it's starting to look like if you discover and start treating it early and aggressively that you have a good chance of surviving Ebola. If L/SL/G had as good a medical system as the US I suspect the survival rate would be much better.
1) What is the likelihood of harm?
2) If harm occurs, what is the cost?
3) What is the cost of preventing harm, including the opportunity cost?
And allocate resources accordingly. In this case:
1) Extremely low. Approx. 3 people in the US have Ebola; all were in West Africa or treated someone already very ill. Nobody else in the US has been infected by these people (again, except someone providing health care to one of them). You are at much greater risk of heart disease, cancer, traffic accidents, hospital error, crime, and probably even lightening strikes and bee stings.
2) The cost is very high, including a substantial risk of death.
3) The cost is easily affordable for the US, but the opportunity cost is higher: The United States and the world have limited health care resources. For example, there's a good chance that many of the resources (doctors and money) would save many more lives and better protect US citizens by addressing heart disease (via prevention, treatment, or research) or controlling the outbreak in W. Africa than by responding to public panic.
I think you'll find that many experts in these fields will say that the panic is the greatest risk, greater than the disease.
Ebola is impossible to catch unless you are directly exposed to someone who is symptomatic. That is why the people treating the victims wear the space suits. The reason those not directly exposed don't need to worry is that the virus dies within an hour or two of leaving the victim's body, I suppose when it dries out. The flu virus on the other hand can survive for days or weeks on a door handle or on dust particles in the air.
I'm still trying to figure out what it has to do with politics.
There is a huge difference between being in a room with someone with early stages of ebola for a few minutes and working in a hospital. Here are some factors when working in a hospital with ebola patients;
1. Much longer contact periods. Many health workers in Africa work 18 hour days.
2. Much closer contact. Health workers touch ebola patients much more often than the general public.
3. Contact later in the disease progression. Ebola is transmitted by bodily fluids. As the disease progresses more bodily fluids are secreted, it is a hemorrhagic disease, and more pathogen is present in the excretions.
If one works long hours and their suit is covered in ebola laden fluids it is quite probable that a small mistake can cause infection. Even the fatigue factor may cause errors in protocol.
If you bothered to RTFA (I know, the horror), you'd have seen that he was not symptomatic during his subway rides. Ebola is not contagious when it is asymptomatic. As soon as he began feeling ill, he isolated himself. When the symptoms worsened beyond that of a common cold, he contacted the authorities. The probability of him having infected anyone is close to nil.
Ebola is a gruesome disease, but it's only transmissible by contact with bodily fluids. That guy who coughed in his hand? Can't have transmitted it. That other one who farted? Nope. The one who touched you on the way out of the subway? Not enough either. You need to be in contact with someone who's symptomatic and whose bodily fluids come into close contact with you (often your hands, then you touching your eyes or something like that).
The obvious issue is that doctors are constantly in contact with infected bodily fluids. The last stages of the disease put out a lot of blood and other fluids. You only need one brief moment of inattention to get it when in those exceptional circumstances. Yet, only 16 cases have been reported among Doctors Without Borders. That's in spite of the absolutely horrendous sanitation and facilities available there. I'd say that on the contrary, those people are doing a splendid job and should be commended for actually going out there and trying to stop the problem at the source with the very real risk of dying from doing so.
Certainly beats sitting in one's basement calling them idiots.
... get it under control in Liberia/Sierra Leone/Ghana ...
Guinea, not Ghana. Ghana has been unaffected by the outbreak. It is as different as night and day from Guinea. Ghana has four times the GDP, a far higher literacy rate, functional institutions, and a democratic government that answers to the people.
They were following CDC guidelines which apparently were contradictory and incomplete.
Basically what everyone is realizing is that the CDC is fucking clueless and everyone has to just use their own best judgement on the matter.
Beyond which... basic quarantine procedures would deal with this problem.
Nigeria is doing that and they're basically free from infection despite being right next to effected countries.
The US used to have such policies in the old days. Ellis Island had extensive quarantine facilities for example.
In this case we have a full blown Ebola outbreak and the fucking retarded administration wants to keep open transport because they're afraid it would look like discrimination. Let me be clear, if the damn outbreak were in the middle of Sweden, I'd still want quarantine procedures. This has nothing at all to do with race but rather everything to do with a very scary virus that isn't playing around.
Now am I actually worried about a mass outbreak in the US? No. I find that unlikely. However, this virus has a 50-70% mortality rate and there is no vaccine.
This is not something you take lightly. You pay this sort of virus the respect it deserves and enact BASIC quarantine procedures. Rudimentary.
Nothing fancy. You come back from one of these countries, your passport gets checked, they see the stamp, they have a blood sample taken or whatever is needed. Then depending on the relevance, you might need to wait for that to come back clean.
Sound inconvenient? It is a fucking plague. Tough shit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The nurses in Texas who contracted Ebola from Duncan, do you believe that they had "prolonged" contact with him?
Duncan was in the hospital from September 28 to October 8. That is ten days which would mean 8 shifts of 8 hours for a total 64 hours where the nurses may have had contact with Duncan. I would call that extended.
The Ebola virus spreads through bodily fluids including saliva (aerosolized when sneezing) and sweat.
If you are close to someone with late stage ebola, don't wear protective gear and are sneezed on it is your fault for being infected. One of the issues in East Africa is families trying to care for sick relatives when ther caregivers have no training or protective gear.
Also, the Ebola virus apparently can live outside the body for several days if encapsulated in body fluids.
Those bodily fluids would have to be encapsulated in something else, a vial for example, or they will dry up and the ebola will die in hours.
*sigh*
The guy in Texas who had Ebola transmitted it to exactly two people, both of which were caring for him while sick. He didn't transmit it to ANY of his family members. I'd say that's a good indicator that the virus really is very hard to catch.
As far as your "idiot" theory goes, smart people screw up, and constant vigilance is hard, especially in an environment like in west Africa. At the moment, you're thinking with the fear generating part of your brain, not the thinking part of your brain. That's very bad, and causes more harm than good. Health officials are telling you it's hard to get because it IS hard to get. The average number of people that Ebola is transmitted to is about 2. That's a very low number. AIDS, which is also hard to catch is transmitted to an average of 4 people. Measles, which is very contagious is 18.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/healt...
So please stop with the conspiracy theory. It's a disease, not a government secret. You can't keep a tight lid the real facts about a disease that people study and publish papers about in medical journals.
Also, consider there's thousands of health care workers in west Africa. There's been a handful of American healthcare workers who've caught the disease, but MANY OTHERS who haven't.
AccountKiller
functional institutions, and a democratic government that answers to the people.
Are they accepting US immigrants?
I didn't mean to troll. I meant to point out the absurdity of calling the doctor who knowingly risked his life to help Ebola patients a fsking idiot. By extension, any doctor who would get in a room with an Ebola patient is an idiot. Where would that leave us? Without competent doctors to treat us if we get a communicable disease. Regardless of whether he took the subway or went bowling when he got back, that man is a hero, equivalent to the 9/11 firefighters. He does not deserve to be called an idiot, and people who call him that deserve to be mocked, at minimum. But I guess mocking is trolling.
Join the IParty!
They are screening and putting every returning health care professional on a health watch. The issue is that the incubation period for ebola can be up to 21 days. The doctor in question arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport on October 17 with no symptoms. Symptoms did not show up until this morning when the doctor followed protocol and was hospitalized. The virus may not even have shown up in his blood on October 17. Remember that infection tests look for antibodies not the virus itself. If the virus had not attacked yet there would be no anybodies.
No. They are afraid of lowering their literacy rate.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
That Dr took a few subway rides and likely infected at least a couple dozen people in the process.
Lets wait the 21 days before making outlandish claims.
LOL Well played.
Because bed sheets are soaked in virus laden excretions making them an extreme hazard and anyone handling them is at risk. Ebols is a hemorrhagic disease which means lots of fluids escaping especially in the later stages of the disease. Also when bed sheets are removed from the bed they are usually crumpled in a ball which creates areas that take a very long time to dry. It is much easier and safer to just burn them.
:^)
It does sound like a nice place though.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
IMHO your "opinion" is very very humble indeed and belongs in the category of "uneducated careless speculation with a sensationalist bent".
It may have escaped your notice, but doctors who help out in West-African hospitals come into close contact with a constant stream of very ill people who are in the stadium where they really are contagious, every day for months at a stretch.
Their protective clothing prevents transmission in the vast majority (say 99,9%) of cases (something you can tell by the fact that we still have doctors left treating Ebola patients). The real danger comes when you take off your protective suit. That has to be done carefully so as not to touch the splatters of blood, muckus, tears, sweat etcetera that very ill patients secrete and if possible it has to be decontaminated first.
Now I'm sure your "humble" and uneducated opinion never has been schooled in elementary probability so you wouldn't understand things like P(contagion_after_100_days) = 1 - [P(no_contagion_after_1_day)]^100, but try it this way.
Playing the lottery every day makes it unlikely that you won't win a single prize.
And so it is with medical personnel who treat Ebola patient for months. They run a risk.
So it's no conspiracy (I can feel your incredulity and disappointment) and no case of "fsking idiots" (a term which I'd like to reserve for you personally).
It's easy to shout your (thoroughly humble) head off about stuff you don't understand, but it's not helping anybody and it stands in the way of a rational attitude towards Ebola.
P.S. there is absolutely nothing "insightful" about your post. On the other hand it's revealing. Revealing of a mindset that couples a penchant for conspiracy theories with a complete lack of understanding of risk and a disdain for plain ordinary everyday scientific commonsense that seems to have whizzed over your (so very humble) head.
It's not easy to catch for the average person. Hmm... how to draw a parallel that the average /. reader can understand...
If your job is to solder tiny parts into electronics, getting burned by a soldering iron is quite easy if you're not careful. It's rather unlikely to impossible for the average person on the street to get a soldering burn.
Likewise, if you're working with people who are infectious on a daily base and have to handle their highly contagious blood, urine, feces, saliva and other stuff the average person not only finds yucky but wouldn't want to get near if paid to do so, you can get infected easily if you're not careful, while for the average person who has zero if not less contact to either contagious people or their bodily substances the risk is far lower, if not nonexistent.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Becaues the average I-beam is more easy to spot than the average virus. It's trivial to know whether you're protected from an I-Beam (is that hard hat on? Yes? You are), but not whether you're protected against viral matter (is your hazmat suit tight? You sure? Are you?)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The ebola outbreak started on March. In 5 months there have been 10,000 cases in countries known for their low health care and sanitation standards. Considering that in many places the population is very crowded and many cases of infection do not get reported until the symptoms get very bad I bet that every person in infected areas would have been in close proximity with at least one ebola infected person. If ebola was as contagious as some people think don't you think a lot more than 0.045% of the population of those countries would be infected by now?
What may be a source of the concern is all the pictures of people in suits carrying body bags. This skews perception as those people are in contact with a corpse that has ebola laden excretions all over it. When an ebola victim has just died that is when they are the most contagious.
3. Flush anybody questionable with 2-5 days of IV vitamin C 80,000 mg tid, 50,000 iu vitamin D3 per day, selenium and zinc. These kill viruses.
Hahaha. :D
Ezekiel 23:20
However, this virus has a 50-70% mortality rate and there is no vaccine.
Does that mean it has a 30% - 50% immortality rate? Hmm....
Has anyone who flew on an airliner with someone who subsequently came down with Ebola gotten sick from it yet? Not that I've heard of but it's possible I suppose. The two people who got sick from Thomas Eric Duncan were directly involved with caring for him at the hospital and obviously didn't follow the procedures well enough to keep from getting infected. But now that the 21 day period has passed none of the people he was living with in Dallas got infected. That has to say something about how hard it is to get infected. It looks to me like Obama is following sound scientific advise and it's working so far. It's possible there may be some others who get it but we know how to control it and with our medical system I just don't see Ebola as a significant threat to the US.
Technically, yes. As doctors define direct exposure that's true. However, doctors and normal people don't define it the same way. If I have Ebola and get bodily fluids on a doorknob, then you come along an hour later, touch the doorknob and then rub your eyes... you can become infected. That fits the CDC's definition of "direct exposure", because you've been directly exposed to my bodily fluids.
So don't get complacent thinking as long as you don't actually touch an infected person you can't become infected.
Some types of mutation are fantastically unlikely - by one account, Ebola would have to mutate into a form that only weighs about 20% or even 10% of what it now does, change from a long, twisted rod to something more like a sphere, and switch the conditions it actually grows under from inside the bloodstream to in the alveolar structures of the lungs to become the sort of threat some people are worried about. There are big differences between viruses frequently mutating and that mutation leading to fast evolutionary selection, but I've tried to explain that on Slashdot too many times to keep hammering at that particular type of ignorance - some people just need to sit down and read a whole good college textbook on Evolution. It may be somewhat reasonable to worry that some mutation in the direction of drug resistance is likely, especially if we don't get this strain under control quickly, but some people are basically describing having a smallish frilled lizard sneak into the country on a piece of driftwood, and six months later, it's stomping buildings flat and breathing radioactive plasma on Mothra, and those same people are too busy spreading rumors to learn anything at all. As they panic at the drop of a hat, people who are actual experts (and not just armchair biology hackers like me) are getting very afraid to say anything at all, because when they give an honest answer that sholdn't cause panic, and might even be a bit reassuring, they expect to be misquoted as saying Ebola will make the Nemesis black hole wander into the inner solar system early and reverse all our magnetic poles, and Raptor riding Jesus will come back and eat our heads, so panic now and avoid the rush!!!
Who is John Cabal?
That Dr took a few subway rides and likely infected at least a couple dozen people in the process. Thats more than enough to start a substantial outbreak around the US and likely the entire planet.
I don't know what's worse, that you think this is how Ebola works, or that someone modded you up for your clueless opinion.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can find more about what Nigeria has done here:
http://www.latimes.com/world/a...
Nothing they did was especially innovative. Their response was textbook. You quarantine anyone infected, you question anyone infected about everyone they've come in contact with, you investigate all of those people, and you do not take the virus lightly.
None of this is new. It is basic.
The people saying we can't have screening or quarantine procedures for political reasons don't seem to grasp that viruses don't care about your politics. It is like when Achilles says to Hector "there are no pacts between lions and men"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The virus will show no pity, no hesitation, and no remorse. It exists to eat and spread.
Just as we have procedures for dealing with forest fires or other natural phenomenon. You don't let politics dictate how you deal with them. There is a correct way and an incorrect way. If you choose the incorrect path because it is politically more correct, then that natural phenomenon will exploit your arrogance and do what it does.
Again, I'm not worried about an outbreak in the US. I am however concerned about the glaring and obvious incompetence of the government. I am routinely shocked by how stupid they are on so many issues.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Chances are, the conversation wouldn't happen like that
Mainly because the USA has signed treaties that make it illegal to refuse entry to a citizen.
That, and when you make a self-report of risk be a metric for spreading the risk, you increase the risk and the amount of lying. But you don't help anyone. So your plan fails for many reasons.
Learn to love Alaska
Afaict in the core countries of the epedemic the problem is a lack of resources. Ideally you would use a new protective suit each time to minimise the risk of material transferring from outside to inside and you would work very slowly and carefully to make sure you didn't puncture the protective suit (remember medical treatment almost inevitablly involves sharp objects coming into contact with patients bodilly fluids but when you are short of time and materials you can't do that and still treat all your patients.
In cases like texas the problem seems to be that there is a delay between the infected patient showing up and the hospital realising what they are dealing with and how seriously they need to take things.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Chances are, the conversation wouldn't happen like that
Mainly because the USA has signed treaties that make it illegal to refuse entry to a citizen.
That, and when you make a self-report of risk be a metric for spreading the risk, you increase the risk and the amount of lying. But you don't help anyone. So your plan fails for many reasons.
Wait a minute. The USA ignores treaties left and right and constantly bombs and invades countries because they want to leave the US-dollar as reserve currency. They torture and hold people without trial. They pay millions to destabilize Syria, Ukraine and dozens of other countries.
But they can't refuse entry because of some treaty with Libera?
Since when did the USA care about any treaty?
Well, Nigera, Kenya, South Africa, and many more countries have cancelled all flights. But Obama said that he "can't" do that. Why he can't do that he didn't say though.
Yep, that's all true, but there are other options, possibly no less scary.
This virus is well established in humans now in this outbreak, whereas before it was mostly a zoonosis (caught from animals). Mutations will now be being selected by their efficacy in prospering in us, not in the original host(s).
Some scientists believe this is already happening, we know it is mutating and there is evidence that it is mutating to become more infectious, to us: http://www.businessinsider.in/...
If it is true that viral loads are coming up earlier and higher than before, then it could be shedding before symptoms. Wouldn't be entirely surprising - containing it through hazmat-after-symptoms will probably select for strains that infect before symptoms. That would screw up all our containment measures rather well. Even if it just accelerates symptoms it could get a lot harder to contain - if first symptoms are a fever _and_ the infected is monitoring and gets themselves straight into care, further infection can be limited, but if first symptoms are fever and projectile vomiting you have much more of a problem.
All that said, scariest thing to me is that this is an African zoonosis that hasn't been out of Africa before except in the lab. We have no idea what hosts it may find in the non-African animal population, should it get the opportunity. If it finds an easy first-world reservoir host (maybe it likes our bats, or our foxes, or our rats) then it will become endemic, rapidly. Endemic ebola (in the absence of vaccine or cure) will be a game changer for 1st world medicine - think about every fever case to be isolated and treated using hazmat until tested negative (probably twice X days apart). Africa's health system, such as it is, is already feeling that pain - Ebola may well kill (already) more people via malaria than it does directly: http://www.reuters.com/article...
...after all, he was just an ignorant shlub that brought Ebola here.
This dipshit however was a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, coming back from TREATING PEOPLE WITH EBOLA who 'felt like crap' for several days (enough so that he was taking his temp regularly) and couldn't apparently be trusted to quarantine himself out of basic precautionary concern. Nope, he had to maintain his urbanite/hipster lifestyle - jogging, taxis, bowling, etc.
Doc: "DO NO HARM" applies just as much to the millions of people around you, as to your actual patient.
Here's a general tip: if you're working directly with Ebola patients, how about you just say "hey, friends, I just got back from West Africa; I feel fine, but just to be careful I'm not spreading a highly communicable deadly disease, I'm going to hang out at home alone for a few weeks, just to be safe."
I'm going to guess your friends and colleagues will appreciate your concern.
-Styopa
No, a flight ban would be all airlines just temporarily suspend all flights to the three West African countries until the epidemic has subsided enough, only then the flights can continue. During the epidemic only military flights can fly into the affected countries, with tightly restricted passenger and cargo access. That way health care supplies etc. can be sent to the affected countries, and health care workers can fly between countries and back (after a 21 day waiting period) to whichever country they came from. Other travel restrictions may apply as well, but the sooner it's done the better, before the epidemic is completely out of control. The dimwits in this administration have it backwards.
And who would enforce the ban? Last I checked the U.S. constitution doesn't give the government the power to ban foreign airlines from flying to a foreign country.
From a practical standpoint, I'd point out that there really aren't that many military transport aircraft in the world, that a great many of them are American, and that they are blocked out literally months in advance. Would your 21-day waiting period also apply to aircrew? That will really bollix things up.
I strongly suspect (but do not know for sure) that the 3000-odd US Military personnel on the way to that part of the world are depending on civilian air transport for much of their logistics. Certainly MSF and other NGOs do so. I also strongly suspect that going to a purely military transport system for Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea would greatly reduce the flow of emergency aid to these countries at precisely the time that their needs are so large.
We should also be careful what we wish for. I am sure that if we institute some kind of silly travel ban from ebola-infected countries, a large number of countries around the world are going to enact a similar ban -- I say "similar" because the major difference is that they will also ban travel with the United States, home of the most ebola cases outside of Africa.
Why it's wrong that we don't require a mandatory 21 day quarantine for anyone travelling from these countries if we truly want to stop the virus from ever getting a hold?
Top it off - this guy went bowling while starting to show symptoms (thus, contagious). Who is going to replace and pay for EVERY bowling ball? What about decontamination of the facility? If I were the owner, I'd be pretty pissed off.
Except that's what doctors and other healthcare workers do every day. They put their lives in danger by treating people with diseases that, if they aren't careful, they could catch. Firefighters also knowingly risk their lives to save people. They will go running into a burning building just to try to pull someone out.
Risking your life to try to save someone else - when you are a trained professional - isn't idiot-territory. These aren't random people jumping into a raging river to save a drowning victim who wind up also drowning. These are people who take all available precautions, realize there is still a danger, and still try to save lives. These people are heroes.
Now if some news reports are right and the doctor interacted with people after showing symptoms, I'd agree that THAT was an idiot move.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I have a co-worker from Ghana; I asked him if he has family back in West Africa and if they are worried. He laughed and said that Ghana has a good health care system, much better than Liberia, for example, and they are not worried. I was amazed by the contrast with US citizens (us), who are fretting so much about the disease. Granted, Ghana's government is taking the disease very seriously and is handling it professionally... another contrast.
But Obama said that he "can't" do that. Why he can't do that he didn't say though.
Well, it's probably because he's not a dictator with unlimited power and can't shut down companies with a wave of his hand.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
> Knowingly and needlessly risking one's life is squarely in idiot-territory.
No, your SENTENCE is squarely in idiot-territory.
Heroism evolved for a very solid reason: it's a survival benefit. It probably originated with "if I save my child, my genes live longer than if I save myself" but it expanded into what we know because it's a good thing. It's the difference between self-interest and ENLIGHTENED self-interest.
The more doctors offer to help in Liberia, the less people in Liberia get infected. The less people in Liberia get infected, the fewer potential people spreading it to other countries. The fewer people spreading it to other countries - the smaller the chance that somebody he loves will be affected (which has a very strong overlap with: people he has an evolutionary/genetic stake in).
Humans are, and can be, a lot more than evolution but evolution generally REMOVES tendencies that are bad for survival, heroism exists in all human cultures and across all ages, sexes and classes for a reason: it's an evolved survival mechanism.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>This virus is well established in humans now in this outbreak, whereas before it was mostly a zoonosis (caught from animals). Mutations will now be being selected by their efficacy in prospering in us, not in the original host(s).
Indeed, where you're wrong is thinking that's a BAD thing -that's exactly what we, as the humans, WANT.
Almost every mild ailment we get from a virus today was once a plague far scarier than ebola.
They are mild ailments now because we, and the virusses, have both been evolving toward that. A virus that kills it's host, kills itself too - it's bad for a virus to be lethal at all and no virus is lethal because it's evil, they are lethal because they are not evolved to us as hosts *ENOUGH* - so they end up causing lethal harm to their hosts which kills them too.
In the medium to long term - the virusses whose hosts live longer, get spread to more people so they both outlive and outbreed the virusses whose hosts die sooner.
In other words on a sufficient timeline evolution of viruses always selects for REDUCED lethality.
If ebola is evolving for human hosts already, then it's likely to become progressively easier to survive with each generation and in due time, getting ebola will be ranked somewhere alongside catching the common cold.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
If you're working day in and day out with ebola under chaotic often difficult to control conditions then you decide to travel home before say quarantining yourself for 2 weeks in your room before travel this is in my book very reckless. There is a difference between being well intentioned and being heroic. A person that carelessly knocks someone into traffic while chasing a purse snatcher is not a hero.