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Why are so many ebola workers contracting the disease? — 19 Comments

  1. I just watched a Texas Hold-em Hand where two players had AA as their hands, which has a 96% chance of ending in a draw. However, one player hit the 4% 4-card flush on the board to win the hand and take the other person’s money. If you play 100 of those hands, that will happen to you (win or lose) about 4 times.

    These doctors may have lowered their chance of contracting Ebola per patient interaction, but their number of contacts is still massive. Even if they can get the risk down to 1 exposure in 1000 interactions, if they then have 2000 interactions with patients, they’ve been exposed about twice.

    The real miracle is that any of the first responders are living at all, much less that we’re getting as few cases as we are.

  2. As someone who has worked in situations requiring hazmat rad-chem gear I can assure you it does not provide as much protection as you might think if someone gets careless due to fatigue via heat exhaustion. Those suits make you begin to sweat almost instantly. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to use hazmat gear in equitorial Africa. Also, careless coworkers can nullify the efforts of the most careful worker. All it takes is one failure to observe all sterile procedures.

    So I think someone has been careless and contaminated areas thought sterile or some patients have been infected with ebola that has managed to mutate and become airborne. I hope that this terrible disease has not become airborne as we are not prepared for the consequences.

  3. sent in my institution after i have complained for years

    Please be advised that OR, OB, Catheterization Laboratory, and other procedural area scrub attire must not be worn upon entering or leaving the institution. Doing so impairs our ability to ensure proper infection control.

    Beginning next Monday, August 4, 2014, the Security Department will begin reminding individuals who enter xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx buildings in scrub attire of this policy. Within a few weeks, we will collect information to share with departmental leadership, although we hope for nearly universal compliance by that time. etc.

    people tend to be lax on protection and other things and not take them seriously.

    which is intersting since we have a lab that can work with ebola and does… not to mention other interesting things.

  4. This article at Foreign Policy offers some explanation for why health care workers are contracting the disease:

    Liberian health workers have complained about a lack of protection and equipment, saying it is limiting their ability to do their jobs and stay healthy. But Nestor Ndayimirije of the World Health Organization (WHO) says that part of the problem is inappropriate use of equipment. He says health workers, for instance, ran through a supply of 8,000 protective suits, worn when dealing with infected or potentially infected individuals, from donors too quickly because they were using them unnecessarily.

    “Some don’t have the personal protective equipment, but this cannot explain the number of infections among health workers,” says Ndayimirije, who witnessed and worked on major Ebola outbreaks in eastern and southern Africa in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There are currently 37 suspected cases among health workers in Liberia, and there have been 16 deaths.

    The Ministry of Health says it is making an effort to speak to and further train hundreds of health personnel, including workers in counties that have not yet even registered cases of the virus.

    And here’s Sierra Leone’s top ebola doctor who has now died from the disease:

    “I am afraid for my life, I must say, because I cherish my life,” Khan told Reuters in a June interview about his work fighting the deadly outbreak of the disease in his country. He added, “Health workers are prone to the disease because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by disease. Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk.” Before Khan’s death, three nurses working at his treatment center also died of the disease.

  5. Ann,

    The lack of training and proper equipment could easily account for the spread of ebola to heathcare workers. Given that we are discussing a situation in Africa, is it any wonder that the necessary equiptment and training are lacking? What is needed is a global ban of all air travel from the infection zone which now includes Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.

  6. I was reading about this and also about Lassa fever, another hemorrhagic disease endemic in Africa. While the fatality rate once contacted isn’t as high, (it seems to be about 1%), it kills or completely incapacitates far more people every year. About 300-500,000 people contract it annually, and about 5000 people die. But Ebola has a fatality rate between 50% to 90%, depending on the strain. This seems like it’s the deadlier strain. It’s a scary thing–of it is aerosolized, it could go nuts. And thanks to easy air travel…

  7. Ebola and Spanish flu are infamous because modern medicine has NEVER found a cure.

    Instead of messing around, the only sane course of action is prompt quarantine, of which my Granduncle knew everything.

    As previously recounted here, he was one of the two (2) survivors at Camp Riley in Kansas.

    It may prove out that we need to select doctors and nurses that have Delta 32 in their genes. No-one else should be allowed to be directly involved.

    Delta 32 is a White DNA mutation. (Only known race to have it, WHO has searched the entire human genome for it.)

    It confers a unique protection for its carriers. It figures to be legacy mutation, hundreds of generations old.

    It may entirely explain why White (global) populations are so low. (contrast with the Yellow race) One might conjecture that some horrific pandemic occurred in the ancient past. Delta 32 survivors became a ‘founder population.’ This DNA fraction becomes ever larger as successive pandemics (the Black Death) overtake humanity.

    Ebola has every prospect of becoming a pandemic — and at lightening speed in the era of jet travel.

    The folly of bringing victims to America is epic. We can’t treat them either. They should be quarantined in place.

    I expect that the lid will come down after the horses are entirely out of the barn.

    If this contagion conforms to priors, expect that it will run absolutely wild for years on end — probably five to twenty-five.

    Plainly, it does not respond to modern antibiotics.

    Think about that.

    The victims are not patients — they are lab rats.

    My Granduncle had much to say about such a status.

    &&&

    As these first evidences show, Ebola is able to get around all of our protective technology — as a practical matter.

    If we keep messing around with it, expect more fatalities than all of those during the 20th Century.

    We can only hope that a pool of Delta 32 physicians exists — and that this mutation provides protection from Ebola.

    { It’s been established that Delta 32 frustrates Black Death, HIV/AIDS and Spanish flu. That’s something remarkable, no? }

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

    &&&

    Just to cheer you up: Avian flu is a trivial variation of Spanish flu. So, if you’ve wondered why the CDC has been going ape about Avian flu — now you know why.

    Again, all such researchers MUST have Delta 32 should they ever be allowed to mess around with Avian flu.

    Period, stop.

    So what do we have? A Japanese researcher messing around with Spanish flu — up in Wisconsin — the original source of the Spanish flu pandemic — at least as far as the US Army medical corps could determine.

    He’s playing with fire in an ammo bunker — and yet is not being stopped by the authorities. !!!

    Madness. Arrogance. Folly.

  8. @blert,

    Genetic testing is racist. (epitaph on a tombstone)

    That’ll happen right up until a violent outbreak that consumes an entire region. After that, the mask of civilization will slip off.

  9. But seriously, I would love to have such secret knowledge in my possession. If I don’t have Delta 32, I wouldn’t go anywhere near infected people.

    You know if you can be tested for such genes? Where/What company?

  10. This is caused by a virus, crafting a vaccine from the
    survivors immune system is essential.
    As we know anti biotics are useless.

  11. Matt…

    “Several commercial testing companies offer tests for CCR5-Δ32.[27]”

    [27] http://www.afao.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/4460/BP0607_Delta_32.pdf

    And, within:

    “In 2006 a company called Syquip Pty Ltd began promoting a service offering to test individuals for the Delta 32 mutation. Promotion of the testing service included high profile advertising targeting gay men, along with posts to consumer forums on the Internet.

    The press release, and their website, offered an international testing service using a buccal swab (swabbing the inside of the mouth) to test for the delta 32 mutation. The test was [first Ed} offered at a cost of $US160 for each individual… ”

    “Information contained on companies website http://www.delta32.com.au claims that homozygotes are “virtually immune” to HIV infection,…”

    %%%

    Then there’s:

    http://www.delta-32.com/

    “Find Out If You Are Resistant To HIV “NOW ONLY $199.00”

    I thought you’d want to know.

    Cheers.

  12. Molly…

    All of the work needs to be done outside the USA.

    The convenience of the researchers is secondary to containment.

    Ebola has been around for DECADES.

    Do note the total lack of progress to date.

    Just what is going to be so special in the next few months?

  13. Lee, I used to live in the area of northern Liberia that’s just across the border from southeastern Guinea where the outbreak started. Ebola had never appeared in West Africa at the time but they did warn us about Lassa fever, of which there had been a serious outbreak in Liberia about 13 years before I was there. A (locally) famous missionary nurse down the road from where I lived had died in that outbreak. It was definitely a sobering idea to contemplate since Lassa has very similar symptoms to Ebola. Lassa fever virus is known to be carried by rats and people get infected when rats are living in houses with thatch roofs, for instance. We were required to have a metal roof where we lived.

    At the time, from what they told us, it seemed like Lassa was like Ebola, in that it broke out in isolated outbreaks from time to time and then disappeared for years before appearing again. And the death rate was very high, like Ebola, in the 50% – 90% range. But recently I went back to read up on it and was shocked that apparently they now believe it’s much, much more common. Like you said, they estimate there might be 500,000 cases a year and “only” 5000 deaths (i.e. a 1% death rate). So I guess they’ve learned a lot in the intervening years. Perhaps Ebola is the same and there are more under-the-radar cases than they’re currently aware of. In the case of Lassa, from what I read, there are lots of cases where the disease is mild enough that people don’t have recognizable symptoms.

    Here’s information about the missionary nurse, who was named Esther Bacon.

    And here’s a link about Aniru Conteh, another Sierra Leonean doctor, who dedicated his life to fighting Lassa fever and who died of that disease in 2004 due to an accidental needle stick while treating a patient.

  14. Blert, I thought they are bringing those victims to the US because of the high mortality rate & that they want their families to essentially get to say “good bye”.
    Plus the medical/hospital community wants the
    *experience* & prestige * of treating an Ebola victim.

  15. I would presume they’re trying to save their lives. People do survive Ebola. And I’m speaking as someone who lives a few miles from where it’s said they’ll be treated.

  16. I vividly remember watching Nightline with Ted Koppel and seeing a villager who was wearing scrubs being interviewed and being asked how he stayed there. He said he wanted to leave and heard Jesus in a voice asking him to stay. This man was telling the TRUTH. And he did stay. I too, read in awe, the story of Fr. Damian and the lepers. Another rarely acknowledged white martyr (no blood) was Nostradamus. He lost his whole family and yet stayed to tend the sick as a physician.

  17. Nostradamus lost his family to the black plague. And he still took care of the sick.

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