Ebola outbreak - general thread #1

[trigger]

Not only that, this patient showed up for treatment after showing symptoms and instead of isolating him, he was send home. For two more days. Doctors here can't even recognize Ebola despite all the warnings.

OMG. All they have to do is ask one question ? Were you overseas?
Now it's to late.

 

[jjenny]

Ebola symptoms early on are the same as the flu. And we are entering flu season now. We are not going to be able to tell who has the flu and who may have Ebola until it is advanced. It is a horrible time for this to happen. And if more people come down with it it is going to be disastrous.


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Which is why there are supposed to ask patients if they traveled to West Africa recently. Which this guy did.

 

[trigger]

Okay, this is for those who say a regular isolation unit will suffice. How many workers in the hospital will come down with Ebola? I hope the number is zero! Personally, I just don't believe that will be the case. If I had a family member in that hospital, I would demand they be transferred.

The ugly MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, got its foothold in hospitals due to unsanitary conditions. A known by hospital staff, but no one wants to admit it or even discuss it. To this day, it is one of those things that is passed off as if "no big deal". However, if you or someone you know has it, it is a nightmare! Therefore, my doubts as to how well this Ebola case can be contained is zilch!

I hope I am wrong. . . .

ETA: Doctors are still not recognizing MRSA in its initial stages after all these years. So they need to get on the ball with Ebola symptoms!

My mom got a staph infection while in the hospital . And I forgot all about MRSA. A ambulance driver that I knew died from getting infected from MRSA. He had 4 little children.

 

[danzn16]

Which is why there are supposed to ask patients if they traveled to West Africa recently. Which this guy did.

Yes in this case you are correct. But if people start getting it here from case zero that question will no longer be valid or helpful.


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[jjenny]

Yes in this case you are correct. But if people start getting it here from case zero that question will no longer be valid or helpful.


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Since they won't release this guy's name, people don't even know if they had been exposed to him.

 

[Soulmagent]

I dont know why people do not believe this could become a huge problem in the U.S.

I mean ,we all send our kids to the same schools , where they all stand in the same lines coughing sneezing ,crying. Laying on the same cot in nurses office .. .we all go to the same stores, jobs, etc. We are not as spread out as They are in Africa . All our doctors offices have those cloth chairs... our dentist... the kids sports,


Yes our health care system maybe a better , but our social culture ,and our capitalist system means people in charge wont shut schools down as fast as they should ,fast food workers will go to work sick, bus drivers , metro riders. How many people flew on his plane ,all of those people could have been infected as well and passed the screening . If one get in undetected ,how do we know more are not?

What if someone flew in infected got sick ,on his way to the hospital he was in a car accident and was killed however some day care worker held his his hand until he died from bloodloss from a head injury. and he never got to tell anyone he just returned from Africa and the daycare worker goes to work ....

This could be really bad here ,and our hospital procedures are not set up to isolate or identify ebola on anything other than risk assessment . 4 hospitals are prepared. That doesnt even sound realistic.

 

[kalekona]

So what I am reading is beginning to remind me of the same kind of panic that caused pools to shut down and kids to be shunned in the 80's.

Yes this has the potential to turn into something bad- but educating yourself and washing your hands will be more helpful than locking yourself in your house. Honestly you are more likely to die from the Flu than Ebola.

 

[trigger]

So what I am reading is beginning to remind me of the same kind of panic that caused pools to shut down and kids to be shunned in the 80's.

Yes this has the potential to turn into something bad- but educating yourself and washing your hands will be more helpful than locking yourself in your house. Honestly you are more likely to die from the Flu than Ebola.

I remember the Aids virus in the 80's to. We could not tell ambulance drivers the patient has Aids.

 

[jjenny]

I remember the Aids virus in the 80's to. We could not tell ambulance drivers the patient has Aids.

In case of Ebola there actually is a risk of transmitting the virus by an ambulance in which an infectious person was taken into the hospital. Which is why they removed it from circulation (two days after the fact). So not telling the driver that the patient had Ebola isn't going to work.

 

[kalekona]

What trigger was talking about was that if they had told the drivers the patient had AIDs they would have refused to transport the patient. People thought you could get AID's just by being in the room- My ex brother-in-law tried to forbid my sister from hugging her brother becuase the sob was that paranoid and uneducated about the disease.

 

[Dogface]

I think the point dogface was trying to make, is that during the incubation period those infected with Ebola can travel long distances. Like this patient did. So screening them in the airports is not going to be all that effective, since they might not show symptoms yet. They should have stopped allowing people from infected regions to come in if they wanted to prevent it from spreading.

Yes! Thank you for stating that so clearly for me! When someone has ~21 days to travel before coming down with symptoms they could literally be anywhere by the time it's recognized as Ebola.

So what I am reading is beginning to remind me of the same kind of panic that caused pools to shut down and kids to be shunned in the 80's.

Yes this has the potential to turn into something bad- but educating yourself and washing your hands will be more helpful than locking yourself in your house. Honestly you are more likely to die from the Flu than Ebola.

BBM: While you are much more likely to catch the flu, the mortality rate is so much lower. For example, the cdc says that typical deaths from the flu are ~36000 a year(and this number is HIGHLY inflated), which works out for a mortality rate in the US of ~0.012%. However, mortality rate is ~46% for Ebola. Now I'm sure once you factored in the likelihood of contracting Ebola it would make it extremely rare, however, the scary thing is that we have had a person walking around for 4 days possibly spreading a disease with a very high mortality rate in a highly populated area coupled with a slow incubation period which makes it very likely to spread further.

I truly believe we need to stop all travel from these countries until this is under control. Any returning Americans need to be quarantined for 21 days. I do not think stepping on toes in this situation is a bad thing as opposed to playing Russian roulette with a disease which we do not have a history of successful treatment yet.

 

[jjenny]

This outbreak actually has 70 % mortality rate according to CDC. The official reported numbers from Africa vastly underestimate both the number of cases and mortality rate.
So it's a lot more lethal than the flu.

 

[Dogface]

The one thing we have going for us is that it's not nearly as transmittable as the flu. Hopefully we are able to play catch up on the point of contacts this man has had and stop it.

 

[kalekona]

I didn't say you were more likely to "catch" the flu I said you are more likely to "die" from the flu- simply put there is 1 case of Ebola in the country so statistically you are more likely to come in contact with the flu.

 

[jjenny]

I didn't say you were more likely to "catch" the flu I said you are more likely to "die" from the flu- simply put there is 1 case of Ebola in the country so statistically you are more likely to come in contact with the flu.

One known case as of today. But because this guy wasn't quarantined for days after showing symptoms, how many more people have been infected? Time will tell soon enough. Personally, I think it's pretty much guaranteed that somebody did get infected, since this guy was symptomatic for days before being isolated.

 

[Dogface]

I didn't say you were more likely to "catch" the flu I said you are more likely to "die" from the flu- simply put there is 1 case of Ebola in the country so statistically you are more likely to come in contact with the flu.

Yes, that's what I extrapolated from that. But I was making the point that it's much scarier because if you were to come in contact with both, you are ~3800 times more likely to die from Ebola.

Each outbreak throughout history starts with a patient zero.

 

[Yoda]

Three Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics and several emergency room workers at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital are off work and under observation after making contact with the patient being treated for Ebola.

Perhaps the most tangible evidence of Ebola in Dallas is an ambulance parked in a city lot in Pleasant Grove.

It's quarantined and roped off with red tape warning of a biohazard. Ambulance No. 37 carried the Ebola patient to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday morning.

Tracing contacts:

Dallas County Health Director Zachary Thompson said that includes four or five children, several adults, and the emergency medical personnel — about a dozen people in all.

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/heal...f-under-observation-for-ebola-signs/16516991/

 

[Yoda]

Video of what the isolation room looks like.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/09/30/an-exclusive-look-inside-isolation-rooms/

 

[Yoda]

If you can, look at @katiemeyler on instagram. She is a volunteer in Liberia. She is working on taking care of the children that have no where else to go when their parents get sick. I went back a few weeks on her feed and read forward.
Children she was watching, who were healthy and playing, begin to show symptoms and they have to send them away to the ebola center. She went to find out how one boy is doing but she's told he is not there.
She is not a reporter, so her photos and messages are not written as an unfolding story. But, by reading through, you see how ebola is stalking the children that are sent to her. Jmo
http://instagram.com/p/tlu8NSomDf/

 

[jjenny]

jjenny, we don't know who he went to first to seek treatment. It could have been a doctor's office or acute care center. As far as we know, when he presented at the hospital ER, he was isolated as soon as his travel history and symptoms became known.

The same hospital to which he was admitted let him go 2 days earlier (after he was already showing symptoms).

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/09/30/6162320/cdc-team-mobilizing-to-come-to.html