Could Ebola Become a Worldwide Plague?...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth


As republicans in congress cut President Obama's request for funding level to counter the Ebola outbraek the potential for a worldwide plague grows. Unless medical science can control the spread, keeping the virus confined to small population area in tribal Africa until ultimately it runs it's course, the entire world is at risk. Controlling the spread and savings lives in Africa is essential to beating preventing mass deaths on a grand world scale.


The New York Times - MINNEAPOLIS — THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.

There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums. What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.

If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.

Why are public officials afraid to discuss this? They don’t want to be accused of screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater — as I’m sure some will accuse me of doing. But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic.

In 2012, a team of Canadian researchers proved that Ebola Zaire, the same virus that is causing the West Africa outbreak, could be transmitted by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys, both of whose lungs are very similar to those of humans. Richard Preston’s 1994 best seller “The Hot Zone” chronicled a 1989 outbreak of a different strain, Ebola Reston virus, among monkeys at a quarantine station near Washington. The virus was transmitted through breathing, and the outbreak ended only when all the monkeys were euthanized. We must consider that such transmissions could happen between humans, if the virus mutates.

Frightening possibilities to be sure. Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD for more.

Via: Memeorandum

Comments

  1. The republicans would rather spend money killing people than saving them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerry, that is the kind of partisan cynicism that cuts off honest and serious debate. I know many republicans and none think that way.

    It's the funding based on erroneous rationale that is fair game and a strong argument exists for that criticism of republicans. Attack the faulty rationale, not the people as that accomplishes zip. As evidenced by out current political realities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. True, RN, but in this context I am really referring to republican politicians and there is evidence that it is true.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mostly the neocons, as well as those who represent constituents in locales with industry that feeds the MIC.

    ReplyDelete
  5. No offense, Jerry, but the left has been pretty darn good at killing people over the decades as well, TR slaughtering hundreds of thousands over in the Philippines, Woodrow Wilson sticking his noes into Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico and then inserting us into a European empire war, FDR repeatedly violating the Geneva Conventions and incinerating hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians, LBJ moronically getting us bogged down in Vietnam (a country that had done literally nothing to America), and now Obama with his drone attacks and kill lists. I think that we just have to face it here, my friend - America has 2 war parties.

    ReplyDelete

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