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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEbola death toll passes 1,900, says WHO
"The outbreaks are racing ahead of the control efforts in these countries," WHO chief Margaret Chan said.
The WHO is meeting on Thursday to examine the most promising treatments and to discuss how to fast-track testing and production.....
....More than 40% of the deaths have occurred in three weeks leading up to 3 September, the WHO says, indicating that the epidemic is fast outpacing efforts to control it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29055041
In the meantime, 2 more cases have turned up in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Edited to correct: this wasn't where the nurse ran away to. Apparently a doctor there secretly treated a diplomat who was infected by a traveler (Patrick Sawyer) in Lagos.
And Thai sailors are refusing to ship rice to West Africa for fear, causing prices to collapse in Thailand, and shortages in West Africa.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I posted a bit more on a new treatment they're considering. The numbers are getting pretty awful, even though one was too many.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/114213402
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I think in the 70s, and very successfully again in the 90s. In the 90s, however, the patients received better than usual care all around and they can't be sure the transfusions made any difference. Most attempts have been much less successful, and it hasn't been successful in the lab (with monkeys).
But anything is better than nothing. Apparently they started working back in August to upgrade the blood banking systems in the affected countries.
polly7
(20,582 posts)FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Compare Ebola to the influenza virus.
Worldwide, the flu results in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths EVERY YEAR.
In addition, Ebola is relatively hard to transmit, requiring direct contact with bodily fluids. No airborne transmission.
Yes, it's a serious virus and has a high mortality rate if caught, but for people to panic or refuse to sail to a port is, frankly, an overreaction.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)But you're more then welcome to go
There are a lot more cases of flu per year than the 3-5 million *severe* cases cited by the WHO, and there would be even more if so many weren't prevented by the flu vaccine. There also would be more severe cases if it weren't treatable with antivirals. And the severe cases and deaths are mostly elderly, children under 2, and people who already have health issues.
Per the WHO: "Influenza occurs globally with an annual attack rate estimated at 5%10% in adults and 20%30% in children."
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs211/en/
That's a bucketload of cases annually. With a global population of more than 7 billion people and a 10% annual global infection rate, you're looking at over 700 million people infected each year. With 500,000 deaths, that's less than a 1% mortality rate.
Ebola has a mortality rate of up to 90%. It has no vaccine and no treatment beyond supportive. Up until now, it has been confined to small, rural villages where entire populations were wiped out before it could spread beyond the boundaries of the village.
This outbreak, however, has made it into densely populated cities. The healthcare systems there are so broken that one hospital was described as having a single stretcher used to carry both incoming patients and outgoing highly infectious Ebola corpses. They run out of gloves, there is a worldwide shortage now of protective clothing, they hand wash. Nurses have gone on strike because they aren't being paid and don't have protective equipment. A doctor who recently returned wrote of just a handful of doctors trying to care for 50 patients; arriving in the morning to find them collapsed on the floor in pools of blood, urine and feces.
There are now 2 diplomats who have traveled while sick, one violating his quarantined while doing so, and a doctor who secretly treated the 2nd diplomat, continued working and socializing even after his symptoms started, thereby causing it to spread in Nigeria.